Letter to Kenya’s general without an army, Mr Miguna
Dear Comrade,
I trust you are doing well, wherever you are, now that your location is another enigma.
But first things first. I used the word comrade with a measure of doubt, because you might ask me how and when we became comrades.
Now, I have no answer to that. It’s a story for another day.
How are you? More importantly, where are you? You see, the last I saw you, you were in a plane headed this way, but after that I heard you calling people despots and that sort of thing.
Indeed, it became a sort of greeting where I work, with colleagues bellowing “Viva!” and “Despots must fall”.
I am still at sea whom you meant by despots but that is a story we can revisit another day, at your pleasure.
Right now, I am enormously bemused by the way things have turned topsy-turvy for you. Having gone to a good school, I am sure you are amused by the irony of your situation, given the events of two years ago.
Not boarding
You have sort of evolved, from “I am not boarding!” to the complete opposite; “can I board?” Or were you were literally told: “You are not boarding!”
For a fellow who calls himself general (by the way, where is your army?), a man who, in your own words, cannot even travel to the place where his placenta is buried, your situation is rather, eeh, laughable.
Around the time an airline decided there was something referred to as red alert, which precluded you from travelling home, a man we call Matiang’i was telling us that he had no problem with your coming home.
Now, if you know who that guy is, he is in the middle of siri kali or what another man called Saitoti used to call gament. Okay, I mean government. Matiang’i is the government. Donge!
If the government had no problem with your coming, who stood in your way? Who issued the red alert if the government had rolled out the red carpet for you?
Somewhere in my reading, I remember a great scholar, whose name I forget, who said that what the government gives, the government can take away, and when it starts to take away, it can take away more than what it gave.
That should not take a lot of brainwork to decipher, for a man who has authored a book that talks about peeling masks and that sort of thing.
In fact, you need to peel the mask off the face of whoever is causing you such needless trouble, like having you ejected from a plane just because you tweeted a few things to the effect that despots would not end up well.
Maybe one reason you were ejected was the response to a social media post asking you something or other and you responded “mobilise!”, “organise!”.
Now, pray tell, who was being mobilised and by who? To do what?
Before I forget, you still hold the record of being the first person in the world to slap a plane. I am sure you recall the incident in which even your jacket got torn and was fluttering in the wind like a flag.
If you do not mind, the neighbour of an uncle of mine has expressed interest in that jacket. He says all it needs is a good tailor and it will grace his shoulders on some good Sunday. He will remember you for good.
Wise counsel
But back to your day of drama, just before you “boarded” by force. You left in one slipper. Did you arrive in the same or did some philanthropic fellow come to your aid? Where is the slipper?
Now, there is nothing like good counsel from a brother. Listen to me and this should work like plastic surgery.
One way you can get back here is to use a ship to cross continents. You can go all the way to the Cape of Good Hope, just to avoid suspicion. Disembark at Dar es Salaam and cross over to Kenya through Mt Kilimanjaro. As easy as pie.
You should be greeting your old schoolmates at Onjiko in no time. Of course, you will need to ditch that skullcap that is your trademark.
Interestingly, you might need a mask. That is a bitter irony. But think about it. See you soon. Viva!– The writer is Special Projects Editor, People Daily
