By Koigi Wamwere:
People Are Eaten By The Very Hyenas They Hide And Protect
Once upon a time, one hyena entered some village and stole sheep. When the people of the village heard about the theft, all villagers were summoned to hunt down the hyena.
When the hyena leant of the hunt and plot to kill him, he ran out of the village even as the people and all their dogs run after him in a massive hyena hunt.
Some distance from the village, the hyena saw the home of a woman whom he begged to hide him from the mob that was chasing him. He lied to the woman that the people chasing him wanted to kill him for nothing under false allegations that he had eaten their sheep. Pleading with the woman to hide him, the hyena promised that if only the woman would hide him, he would give her a sheep. Overwhelmed by greed, the woman agreed to hide the hyena under her bed.
Just then the crowd that was chasing the hyena arrived at the woman’s hut and asked her whether she had seen a hyena that had eaten their sheep and had come her way. The woman said she had not seen the hyena. The people said the hyena has come her way but the woman insisted she had not seen him.
When the woman insisted that she had not seen the hyena, the people continued with their chase for the hyena to the great relief of the woman.
When the crowd left, the hyena came from hiding under the bed and profusely thanked the woman for agreeing to hide him. However, the woman was not thinking about the hyena’s gratitude. She wanted to ask when the hyena would give her the sheep he had promised to give. But before she could do so the hyena said he had not eaten for a long time and needed to eat her.
The woman was shocked and begged the hyena not to eat her.
However, the hyena did not listen to the pleadings of the woman and immediately jumped at her with the intention of eating her.
The woman grabbed the hyena’s front legs while screaming and begging anyone who heard to come and save her.
Fortunately, the crowd that the woman cheated had not gone too far and heard her screams. They rushed back to the hut of the woman where they found her wrestling with the hyena that had badly injured her.
When the people asked what the problem was, the woman explained that this was the same hyena that they were looking for. It wanted to kill her though she had saved him by hiding him under her bed.
Shocked the crowd asked again whether this hyena was the same the woman said she had not seen. She said yes. Her generosity notwithstanding, the woman did not expect the hyena she had saved and had promised her a sheep could plan and plot to kill the very woman who had saved him.
Angry with both the hyena and the woman the people allowed the hyena to eat the woman and then killed the hyena.
But the hyena was not alone in betraying persons who had saved him. Nor was the woman alone in hiding enemies of the people for personal gain.
When leaders from our community steal votes or rig elections, we hide or defend them by denying their rigging the way the woman defended the hyena in the mistaken belief that if we save them from danger of prosecution, we might get some benefits from their evil leadership.
When we defend corruption of our ethnic leaders because we believe that we might derive some benefits from that leadership – when in reality we don’t, again, like the woman, we shall be hiding the hyena of graft under our beds until the hyena threatens to eat us up.
When leaders steal leadership and then blame the Supreme Court for exposing and taking that leadership back from the hyena but many people condemn the Supreme Court for nullifying rigging, we are no different from the woman who protected the hyena that had stolen people’s sheep.
Hyenas among us are as many as we hide and protect. There are hyenas who steal power. There are hyenas that eat and protect corruption. There are hyenas that reap from and protect negative ethnicity. There are hyenas that benefit and profit from killing people. But when we hide hyenas because they promise us sheep, we must know the same hyenas will come for us tomorrow.
Our worst enemies are hyenas that steal from people, persons who hide hyenas from prosecution and greed of people who support hyenas that promise them something in return.
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