NASA: The Message for the 2017 Elections is Simple: A Hungry Man is an Angry Man and Angry Men Vote!
I woke up this morning hoping to read that the National Super Alliance (NASA) Party was beginning to crystallize its campaign messaging seventy-nine days from August 8, 2017. I was hoping to see a “Talking Points” approach to messaging that would blanket Kenya’s media – print, TV and social – with a clear consistent message:
THE HIGH COST OF BASIC ESSENTIALS SUCH AS SUGAR AND UNGA, IF ONE CAN FIND EITHER, IS A DIRECT RESULT OF JUBILEE’S INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION.
It is a message that is clear and succinct and self-evident; one embodied in the simple expression:
“A HUNGRY MAN IS AN ANGRY MAN AND ANGRY MEN VOTE!”
That Kenyans are struggling to find and afford unga and sugar does NOT require any explanation. It is obvious. What is also obvious is the ample evidence that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s government Jubilee have dropped the ball on the matter. Even Jubilee sycophants such as Collins Wanderi (KTN) and Macharia Gaitho (Daily Nation) have joined renowned economist David Ndii to eviscerate the digital duo’s analogue handling of the country’s strategic grain reserve (SGR) docket AND its long-term food security viability.
Droughts, like floods are acts of nature that most competent or semi-competent governments CAN and SHOULD plan for – plain and simple. Jubilee has demonstrated a consistent inability to plan for the most basic of human needs: Food, Personal Safety & Security and Shelter.
So why isn’t NASA hammering away at the incompetent planning for what any run-of-the-mill meteorologist knows are seasonal near-annual weather-related occurrences that have dire consequences on the country’s food supply?
Why is the opposition party adding to the discussion on independent candidacies and not to the KSh. 7bn white elephant that is the Galana Irrigation Project that was intended to address the very thing the voters are now suffering from – hunger?
From Ronald Reagan’s “Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago?” to Bill Clinton’s “It’s the Economy Stupid!”. From Barack Obama’s “Hope” and “Change” slogans to most recently, pseudo-Big Man Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again!”, successful political campaigns have a simple slogan or word that capture society’s prevailing zeitgeist.
The Kenyan voter is hungry and thirsty.
They are starving and parched because their current government has mishandled the country’s food security. With the elections less than three months away, NASA’s message or slogan should combine that physical hunger, the reason for the hunger – incompetent and corrupt governance – and channel the resultant anger towards voting Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto out of office.
NASA’s message from now until August 8 should encapsulate AND embody the truism:
“A HUNGRY MAN IS AN ANGRY MAN AND ANGRY MEN VOTE!”
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