Mũndũ a vaa nĩ atige kwania ngai nda!
(Stop boasting to your god about how full your stomach is.)
You may have heard, recently, a man boasting that it was his turn to eat meat—and the turn of others to salivate. But such hubris, from one who feels he has “arrived,” is not new. Let me explain.
A long time ago, in the African Reserve of Kagaari North, there lived a man who became extremely rich. Rich, in those days, meant he owned and ran a hotel. Not just any hotel—a six-item menu hotel: chai, mandaci, kafu, ndumbuiya, cavaci, and tosti-mafuta.
In comparison, every other “hotel” in the shopping centre—and even in neighbouring centres—offered only two items: chai and mandaci. That alone made him a man apart.
Now, at Independence, life in these parts was far from rosy. The people had been uprooted from their farms and confined to villages so colonial authorities could isolate Mau Mau fighters. After the war, the new government faced a different challenge: how to send people back to their land.
An idea was born—reward the African who resettled fastest and best. Build the finest house, move back quickly, and win a prize.
People got to work. Soon, the countryside shimmered with iron-sheet roofs replacing thatch. So striking was the change that neighbours, the Mbeere, quipped:
“After beating the white man, he has returned to build iron-roofed houses for the Embu!”
But our hotelier had the means. In no time, he put up a timber house—made of offcuts, yes—but with a red concrete floor. That detail alone elevated it. He won the prize: KSh 4,000.
In those days, government officials stole less—or perhaps just more modestly. So, when the money came, they dutifully took half and gave him the rest. He walked away with KSh 2,000. That, my friend, was kuinuliwa. Kuhomoka. A real rise.
I have left poverty behind me by seven corners.
But humility did not rise with his fortune.
In celebration, he declared:
“I have left poverty behind me by seven corners.”
If you’ve ever run cross-country, you understand what that means. To be seven bends ahead is to be untouchable. From GPO to Yaya Centre is barely five corners; to Westlands, three. Seven? That is another world entirely.
Yet, while poverty never quite caught up with him, it gave him a run for his money.
So, what am I getting at?
Defending the bill of rights
Jukistopia reminds me that it is foolhardy for anyone to imagine that we, as a country, have left dictatorship, despotism, and tyranny behind “by seven corners.”
The 2010 Constitution was our collective attempt to bury those ghosts—to entrench human rights, promote equity, end tribalism and cronyism, curb corruption, and restrain executive excess.
But constitutions do not enforce themselves. People do.
And today, the signs are troubling. Inter-ethnic intolerance is rising. Those who wield state power increasingly feel entitled to unleash it on anyone perceived as a threat to their access to resources.
It is easy to cheer when the tear gas is not in your eyes.
Easy to applaud when the boot is on someone else’s neck.
But tables turn.
And when they do, the dance is no longer enjoyable.
You may not agree with those being silenced, dispersed, or punished—but let them be. The principle is larger than the person.
“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.”
A nation stands or falls on such principles.
In Chuka, they say:
“When digging battle trenches, dig both deep and shallow ones—you do not know how the battle will go.”
In other words, never build a system that only protects you when you are winning.
It is therefore wrong—dangerously wrong—for a president to dismiss dissenters, especially with the arrogance that “it is our turn to eat.” That kind of thinking is not new either.
It is exactly what brought down KANU.
And history, unlike our boastful hotelier, is never seven corners behind.
