By Gab Oguda
We are now faced with two situations, as a country. Go with Uhuru Kenyatta’s fraudulent win and limp through a divided country till 2022; or let all the chips fall and rebuild anew.
Whichever option you choose – and there is no third option here – there are bound to be grave, unmitigated, consequences.
If you choose to accept Uhuru Kenyatta’s illegitimate second term, you shall have given your seal of approval to a deeply divided country where the tribe(s) in power run riot over the tribes out of power, a badly wounded health-care system where Kenyans have to sell their property to fly abroad for minor ailments, a collapsing economy with half the country jobless, and a lawless nation where the state dress ethnic militia with police attire to hack down those opposed to its rulership.
An acceptance of Uhuru Kenyatta’s second term is an admission that you are powerless to change what’s happening around you, and that you are ready to suffer the consequences of your cowardice, which includes, but not limited to, death of your kith and kin.
If you choose the second option; of letting the chips fall and rebuilding this country from the bottom-up; you have chosen the path of temporary pain for permanent gain. The pain will surely come, because no status quo has ever sat back to watch it being annihilated. There will be inflamed terror on enemies of the state, real and imagined. Investors will flee. The shilling will tank. All of us will be penniless. The country will come down to its knees. Many will starve. People will die. But in the end, the rain will come. And the grass will grow.
People are asking about the third option of Raila Odinga sitting with Uhuru Kenyatta and negotiating for a uniting truce. Your answer can be found in 2008. Mwai Kibaki steals the elections in broad daylight, swears himself at night, and instigates a blood-run. The violence is so bad everyone is scared of the economy collapsing, Raila Odinga is sweet-talked into a raw deal and a handshake stops the mayhem.
We now know, with the benefit of hindsight, that the handshake did not solve a thing. In fact, the only thing the handshake managed to achieve was to make William Ruto so mad with Raila Odinga for letting the chance to rule this country go, so much so that it did not take William Ruto much time to wash hands with Raila Odinga, whom he called a coward, and form his own political party.
History has consistently taught us that we may attempt to bandage the wound to prevent the pus from smelling, but without convincingly treating the wound, it will continue to fester, the limb will develop gangrene and one day the surgeon will recommend that it be chopped off.
Whichever way you look at it, whether you are team optimism or team pessimism or team opportunism, that is the decision we are faced with, as a country, right now. The patient has checked herself into hospital for another round of dressing and the nurse has to decide whether to continue with the replacement of the bandage or book the patient for the surgical table. But there is one serious problem.
The nurses are currently on strike.
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