which is not yours and somehow when the true owner discovers the fraudulent deal he spends the next twenty years proving that the land is indeed his .
Woe unto him if he happens to die while the proceedings on the case are still going on as that is the surest way to lose the property . The inviolability of a title deed in Kenya is always flexible in favor of the person with the money . Money has a very loud voice in Kenya .
Ochieng is reminded of a friend whose car was stolen in a parking lot , he reported the theft to the police and three weeks later he was called by the police to go to the station to identify a car they had recovered that matched his description .
The car , whose number plates were missing but had been engraved on the windows , was definitely his and even his personal papers in the glove compartment were intact . The police procedurally asked him to return with the car documents so they could release it .
On presenting the log book , he was shocked to be informed that his document was fake , a River Road original . He had imported his car two years earlier and had cleared the car at the port personally and had come out of the port with number plates .
He subsequently picked his logbook from the government agency charged with issuing the document , how was it possible that his document was a fake . The police were of course not going to release the car with fake documents and asked him to go to the registrar of motor vehicles for a genuine document .
Fortunately he had kept all the paper work and he started the nightmare of proving that a car he had had for two years was actually his . It took him five months to eventually manage to claim his car from the police station , how was this even possible .
On every empty space in Kenyan towns you will find the ubiquitous car sale yards . Ochieng has been puzzled by these car yards which are always full of cars , when do they ever sell those cars on display or do Kenyans change their cars every six months . Who buys them ?
Another friend of Ochieng did go to one of those yards and saw a car that he fancied . They negotiated a price and after transferring the money he went to the yard and collected his car with a copy logbook and was informed that they would organize for a logbook transfer to be issued in his name .
Apparently Kenyan men do not marry the women that they have fun with . Could this explain the prevalence of many unhappy marriages and the huge number of single mothers ?
He was told that a new log book would be ready in a month ’ s time . Three months passed and every time he enquired he was told there is a delay at the Registrar of Motor Vehicles due to some system upgrade that was apparently going on .
Nine months down the line he received a call from a gentleman who claimed that he was the owner of the car . He further claimed that he was still waiting for the half a million balance that was owed . A true caller app confirmed that his name was the same as appeared on the copy logbook .
Ochieng ’ s friend informed the caller that he had fully paid for the car and was waiting for the logbook transfer . The angry caller then informed him that he was instituting recovery procedures for the car unless his balance was paid .
The irritated friend drove to the car yard to confront them about the demand that he had received only to find the yard closed with no cars and a sign reading ‘ To Let ’ hang on the fence . He called his contact who was now a ‘ mteja ’.
Ochieng ’ s friend had to engage a lawyer to protect his car as the caller correctly said the person whose name appears on the logbook is deemed to be the rightful owner of the car . As of the last time Ochieng spoke to him the matter had yet to be resolved .
Is it in the Kenyan DNA to con ? Why are scams the diet we are fed on a daily basis ? Why is it that every flashy young man is moving around looking for the deal and in Kenyan-Speak a deal is a fraudulent scheme designed to make lots of money quickly aka theft style .
Covid is a devastating disease and it has turned the world upside down but to the wiry Kenyans it is just another opportunity to make megabucks . The government is urging Kenyans to get vaccinated and because of the limited supply they have prioritized certain groups .
In our typical double-speak the leaders that were urging people to go for vaccination were themselves not getting vaccinated and as expected the uptake was poor . To add to the confusion there suddenly appears on the market a vaccine for sale and the leaders go for it .
The message to the public is very clear , the potent one is the one you buy and at such astronomical prices there is a Kenya making a small fortune to sell a vaccine that the public is getting for free . How does one with a clear conscience make money out of people ’ s fear ?
Then the leaders have a change of heart and they are publicly vaccinated with the free variant and within days it miraculously runs out . Kenyan leaders are such conmen that Ochieng is willing to bet that they were not being injected with the same vaccine as Wanjiku .
When will we ever hear the last word on double standards , one for the affluent and the other for the poor ? How do we fight a pandemic if the rules of engagement are different ? Fortunately this time Covid seems to disproportionately target the rich so they cannot escape scot free any more .
Why would a government contrive to send a mixed message on a subject as serious as a pandemic ? It was sad to hear someone say that those for BBI are taking Astra Zeneca and those against BBI are getting the supercharged Russian Sputnik
Everything in Kenya is politics and politics in Kenya is all about making money and how the money is made does not matter . Kenyan ’ s idolize the rich irrespective of how they make their money and we welcome thieves with song and dance even into our sacred churches .
Conmen thrive in Kenya and as such we elect them to high office and protect them from prosecution by invoking the tribal card when they are in trouble , we speak from both sides on the mouth because that is Kenya for you , we say what we don ’ t mean and mean what we don ’ t say !
96 MAL41 / 21 ISSUE