Where’s Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko? At the counter of a suburban bar
There’s no escaping our dismal, personality-driven politics. It’s intrusive, cheapening conversations everywhere, and coloured by men who are relentless in insinuating themselves into our lives. Where, for example, did this eccentric governor who is supposedly “in hiding” turn up on Friday? At the counter of a suburban bar.
Drunken Fellow: Where’s Sonko?
Reluctant Listener: Who?
The bad pop music from the bar’s ghettoblasters had zapped some of his words.
DF: I mean the governor of Nairobi. I haven’t seen him of late. Life in the city is somewhat diminished without him [this last bit is Reluctant Listener’s sense-grab of what Drunken Fellow said].
RL: How would I know? I live in Kajiado and I don’t even know where Ole Lenku is or what he’s up to. Why should I care about the governor of Nairobi? Does it really even matter? These people will sit in those comfy offices for five years, they’ll do next to nothing, and then they’ll leave and we may never hear about them again. It’s a revolving door.
DF: I heard that Sonko was worried about his safety. He had something like fifty police officers protecting him. Then they withdrew the bodyguards. Hearing him speak about it, it sounded like he needed an army to guard him. He couldn’t get his way, so he fled to Masaku and he is now working from his rural home. His flunkies drive down there and sit in his kitchen and discuss tenders and the skyscrapers that Sonko plans to buy.
RL: Are you sure? I thought the police officers were restored? And I thought I heard on the radio that he was in Nairobi on Friday? Something to do with Brookside, milk and schoolchildren.
DF: Can’t be! The man is terrified about getting anywhere near City Hall. Won’t touch anything there either. I think he’s worried about being poisoned. He said if he touches so much as a pen in his office he’d collapse and die.
RL: You believe all that nonsense? Who is he afraid of? Plus, he’s a wealthy man, surely he can afford to hire his own army to protect him.
DF: He said it himself! He made City Hall sound like some big toxic nuclear dump site.
RL: You said he is working from Masaku? I don’t think he’s been working. I think he’s been watching too much TV. He’s delusional and paranoid. We are not going to have a Sergei Skripal incident in Nairobi. The governor hasn’t betrayed a state.
DF: Scribble?
RL: No, Skripal, the former Russian military officer who spied for the UK. He was a double agent. He and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent at their home in Salisbury, England, earlier this year. Two Russian men posing as tourists are said to have smeared the man’s door knob with the poison, which the two touched and then fell ill. Earth-shaking international incident up north. I think Sonko is imagining that something like that could happen to him.
DF: You never know. Some Big Men in Kenya have died in mysterious circumstances. Helicopters drop down from the sky. Some have even been assassinated in broad daylight.
RL: But Sonko is not a Big Man. Things are not that grave. I think he’s overwhelmed. Nairobi is ungovernable. There’s too much disorder. The needs are too great. The affairs of the city are controlled by men who benefit from the chaos. To eliminate the mess is to undermine the livelihood of too many who gain from it.
At that point someone changed channels on the giant TV screen in front of us to a 7pm news broadcast. We heard that some Big Man would be “interviewed” in a later segment. Déjà vu.
