Ochieng was casually reading through the Nation newspaper in the morning when a death announcement caught his attention and was shocked to realize that it was about his high school and college colleague, Josh, who apparently had passed on after a short illness.
Nothing reminds a person about the ephemeral nature of life and the fact that death is real than the sudden and unexpected death of a friend. It is interesting that death is always untimely even if the deceased is ninety-seven years old.
Ochieng’ s morning was ruined as he went into auto-mode where one instinctively wants to call all your common friends to inform them of the tragic news. Ochieng also thinks that the calls are a catharsis to ward off the fear of death and summon social support.
That evening, Ochieng and a few of his friends met for a drink and the inevitable start to plan how they were going to support the funeral arrangements. Death is the ultimate socializer as people assemble to send off a friend, colleague or family member.
In the meeting Ochieng and the group began, as is usually done, to reminisce on the life of Josh as though the friends needed to update themselves and archive in their minds the life of one of them aware that the same will happen when their time comes.
Josh was one of those students one admired and was especially good at mathematics and was from a prominent family, hence well off, but his true claim to fame in high school was his longtime girlfriend, Philo, from the sister girl school.
Philo was a beauty to behold and had that natural elegance that had many schoolboys drool over her and imagine a life with her yet sadly cognizant that they stood no chance as she was permanently attached to Josh with no apologies.
In the discussion, the realization arose that one of his standout qualities was that whereas the rest of the boys could only attempt to get her attention with fancy words and corny missives, suave Josh was able to gift scarves and perfumes creating a ten-nil outcome.
When a good number of students transitioned to the then only university, their romance continued and as Josh had been accepted to do architecture, a rare glamourous field, their fate seemed sealed as the ultimate love birds destined to marital bliss.
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Cracks began to appear after the first year as Philo, snugly ensconced in‘ the box’, the college nickname for the female residence, became a target of the salaried men who frequented the area with their cars offering an exciting shortcut to the future.
The expensive lifestyle that Josh had accustomed Philo to, now became his undoing as there were men who were able to offer instant luxury notwithstanding that Josh’ s future was definitely bright but instant gratification always wins.
When Philo left college after three years, she left Josh in college as his course took five years and she had a flat off Ngong Road which everyone knew was way beyond her means and that is when Ochieng learned the word Sugar-daddy and the power of money.
That name, sugar-daddy has had various transitions in Kenya in an effort to gentrify the name and for a while it had morphed to Sponsor but Kenyan’ s ability to cut through the fluff and call a spade a spade has seen the name become the current humorous Mubaba.
If you think that money has eroded the social fabric and reduced relationships into financial transactions popularized by that all time classic‘ No Romance Without Finance’ then Ochieng would like you to check out money’ s corresponding effect in politics.
The biggest threat to democracy has been the fact that you do not vote for the most suitable person to represent you in parliament, your vote is bought by the richest spender on the election trail to represent his or her interests in parliament.
Democracy has become a system of the rich, by the rich and for the rich and this malaise is global and even the so-called citadel of democracy, the USA is being assaulted by the insidious effect of money as the oligarchs buy and peddle influence.
Ochieng is even tempted to paraphrase a well-known quote and render it as‘ Money corrupts and too much money corrupts absolutely’. There is good reason why capitalism, the byword of democracy is fast losing its sheen as money wreaks havoc in society.
The democratic political system was geared to improve the life of the citizenry and when that noble objective is overtaken by the narrow interests of the elite and they begin to impoverish the very people they represent then a reset is overdue.
The United States of America, despite being the richest country in the world has a horrific income disparity, a mediocre healthcare system and terrible social safety network making the society akin to a third world country. Poverty is real in the wealthiest country.
Ochieng has been unable to figure out the direct connection between democracy and lying but it seems those who profess democratic ideals have learnt that all one has to do is make grandiose sounding promises and proceed not to deliver once elected.
It is now globally apparent that the American president who is the commander in chief of the armed forces is also the liar in chief of the country as he ridiculously tries to justify untenable political moves to an increasingly skeptical populace.
Ochieng is also quick to note that as it happens in the USA so does it in Kenya. Our own Kasongo has borrowed the script and the blueprint of the modern democratic states from the Americans and is implementing it to the T.
Kasongo learnt a long time ago that every man has a price and therefore the central theme of his political strategy was to accumulate as much money as possible by all means possible even if it is to impoverish Kenyans to have the financial clout to buy anyone.
As a canny politician he was right and he went on a buying spree a la American style and ringfenced himself with amoral acolytes who assisted him in pillaging the ministerial and national coffers to buffer his political arsenal.
As far back as in every ministry he headed in his meteoric rise in the political arena, those ministries became the hotbed of scandals and corruption as money vanished in sack-loads to build his political vehicle.
It is interesting that the core team of the inner cycle operatives that has been with him for years is still with him as to a person on a mission of plunder, loyalty outweighs competence by a mile and also explains his micromanagement style of operation.
Even as we prepared to vote him into the highest office in the land, we were under no illusions as to his saintliness, he had a dark Post Election Violence( PEV) record and Kenyans knew he was a thief, but the narrative then was that even the dynasties were thieves.
On ascension to the Kenyan political pinnacle, he wasted no time in buying out the judiciary and they were now at his beck