Last word
On Second Readings
Those , like Ochieng , who went to missionary schools will be familiar with how a standard school day ran . After dispensing with all the housekeeping requirements at home and having breakfast , students first assembled in the chapel for bible reading and prayer .
This was of course not optional and it did not matter whether you believed in the colonial god or not since your visa to education was through the bible . Ochieng remembers being required to repeat that God was love , six times daily or receive six lashes if he refused .
It was a no brainer that soon all students were parroting bible verses since the opposite would attract corporal punishment but the students didn ’ t then realize the main objective of this practice was to brainwash them and instill unquestioning obeisance .
Ochieng had the misfortune of having the priest visit his father on various occasions and the issue was always the same , that Ochieng had the annoying tendency to ask too many questions about the bible rather than believe it unquestioningly as the word of God .
To question the word of God was deemed blasphemous and the threat of expulsion was never too far from Ochieng who seems to have escaped it not due to parental intervention but rather that the school needed his sporting and academic ability .
Ochieng remembers one bible story that always disturbed him and which also earned him a real expulsion threat . The story of Esau and Jacob just did not make any sense to Ochieng and his pointed questions just seemed to elicit anger not explanations .
For those not familiar with the story , Esau and Jacob were twin sons of the biblical Isaac , the famous son of Abraham who escaped sacrifice as God tested Abraham ’ s
It is actually laughable to imagine that the chief culprit in the theft on the election victory should become the chief campaigner for the loser to get an ego boosting post in an organization that is full of hot air . faith . Esau was the elder of the twins and by tradition should have received the family blessings .
Following a series of bizarre happenings and with the aid of the mother Jacob tricks Isaac to bless him because apparently Esau had sold him his birthright for a meal . Jacob also called the father of Israel got his blessings by deceit and fraud .
So , by the time Esau requested for his blessings , it was too late since he had already blessed Jacob . Apparently once a blessing has been given it cannot be revoked and that is how the older sibling ended up serving the younger by treachery .
If that story sounds unreasonable and unjust Ochieng would like to remind you that Kenya replays the same story with nauseating regularity every five years during elections and the fifty plus one formula , whether rigged or stolen , becomes the word of God and irrevocable .
No amount of grinding and gnashing of teeth can overturn a democratic anointment to the presidential palace as Baba has discovered on numerous occasions when the supreme court of the land has upheld that the older shall serve the younger .
The first-time round Baba sold his birthright for the disastrous ‘ Nusu mkate ’ regime that was certainly beneficial to the pockets of a few Kenyans but raised the government wage bill to astronomical heights that left an indelible mark on the national debt .
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