Ochieng recently remembered an interesting character who belonged to his high school underworld, if you know you know, he was called‘ Jose MaSpeed’ and he belonged to a shady group of students who seemed to be at the center of all the school troubles.
Jose stood out because even as a mono, he was strangely buddies with third formers, Ochieng was to later learn that he ran an intricate logistics system to procure them cigarettes and illicit brew packed in tomato sauce sachets.
To the rest of the school, he was Joseph Okoth, an innocent and sometimes timid looking young lad who you would have sworn would never harm a fly. He was a member of the choir and in class he always sat at the very front and was a favorite of many teachers.
But you could be sure that if there was trouble brewing anywhere in the school you could safely bet that Jose was somehow involved in it, as the saying goes birds of a feather flock together but Jose looked more like a docile dove among hawks.
Ochieng remembers one incident where the school busted a group of third formers smoking bang and they were suspended and as you may have guessed Jose was among them. Later all the culprit students were expelled but Jose was reinstated for lack of evidence.
When interrogated, the third formers confirmed that Jose did not smoke and as he was not caught in possession of any joints, it was eventually decided that he was a student in the wrong place at the wrong time and since he was a mono his presence was a puzzle.
Teachers were at the forefront of proclaiming Joseph’ s innocence but the school rumor mill knew that here was a student who escaped expulsion by the skin of his teeth due to the fact that he had this curious dual personality that enabled him to operate in two worlds.
By third form Jose had joined the Christian Union, Ochieng knows for sure that it was because there was a girl, in their sister school, who had caught his fancy and since she too was in the Christian Union, he planned to profit from the frequent joint meetings.
Since Ochieng was also in the club, he was able to witness, first hand, the amazing and mesmerizing qualities of Okoth in operation. It seemed that he had a talent of being able to transform himself chameleon like
103 MAL72 / 26 ISSUE into any personality he wanted.
During one of the joint meetings, the teacher in charge after an emotional sermonette asked if there was anyone who wanted to give a testimony and to Ochieng’ s surprise, Okoth raised his hand and said he wanted to share.
He proceeded to regale the meeting with such a moving testimony that by the end of his monologue everyone including the subject of his interest was convinced that here was a person who had booked his ticket to heaven, unfortunately Ochieng knew better.
Ochieng was amazed by the duplicity of this character who was to able spin a tale so convincing that all bought it. For the record it is worth noting that he did eventually succeed in befriending the girl who made him join the Christian Union in the first place.
Okoth was a born politician but Ochieng was only to realize this later in life since at that time he couldn’ t comprehend how a person could live a lie. But the current Kenyan political scene is replete with Okoth-types, the two-faced operatives who run our country.
As if to drive this realization home, Ochieng was amused to read a slogan printed at the back of one of those septic tank exhauster trucks usually parked at Dagoretti Corner. It read that‘ This Lorry Is Full of Political Promises’- how apt.
If you take a look at the region, you realize that it is one largely controlled by a cabal of political thugs who are not interested in running countries but maintaining power. A prominent politician quipped that only yes-men can survive these current regimes.
There are exceptions, for example there is Rwanda, that doesn’ t seem to fit that mold in the sense that meaningful progress seems to be taking place there in spite of the horrifying murderous events that occurred in the country not too long ago.
The rest of the countries in the region seem to be reading from the same script and unfortunately democracy does not seem to be in any of their agendas and the strife therein is slowly turning into a festering political cancer.
Ochieng is painfully aware that our current president got in power on a raft of grandiose promises that he said he would fulfil within a hundred days of his being elected and they were derived from a list of what he pointed out as failures of the former government.
Numerous churches chimed in and gave him a clean bill of spiritual health having declared him the chosen of God even though the former president pleaded with Kenyans to listen to him and not vote for a person he claimed would betray them.
Kenya was soon full of prophets that not only foresaw and foretold the advent of the chosen dynamic duo, but went ahead to proclaim a period of prosperity for Kenya as the God-fearing leaders were supported by prayer warriors as spouses.
The church was only too happy to declare that God moves in mysterious ways and went on to state that just as an imperfect soul in the person of Saul was later transformed into a Paul and became the bedrock of Christianity, so would the same happen in Kenya.
But our men and women of the cloth are currently conspicuous by their silence, and those still brave enough to see anything saintly in the leadership are derided for being self-seeking charlatans willing to sell Kenyans for thirty pieces of silver.
Kenyans had confused Christianity with Christianism, which uses a Christian identity to drive political agendas, tribalism, and social control as opposed to Christianity that is about personal faith and spirituality.
Ochieng had been confounded by how the evangelicals in America could possibly vote into power an indicted criminal and a pedophile accusee until he realized that there was a whole world of difference between Christianity and Christianism.
Every time we castigate Muslims for being adherents to an inherently violent belief, we are also confusing Islam as a religion and Islamism as a political ideology. Just ask a pious Muslim in Afghanistan about their dreadful life under an Islamist government.
The American society is currently riding a wave of Christian nationalism that is so unchristian and cruel that the Pope who happens to be American has spoken out against the ungodly regime and Trump has been more than willing to dare insult a sitting Pope.
Trump is actually shockingly considered a Christian and the defender of faith in America, as strange, as that may sound. Likewise, and our leader has severally been voted the most corrupt leader in Africa and yet he got into office on a god-fearing Christian ticket.
A political commentator had warned that it