The Kenyan electorate under the Jubilee Party should be pacified. They are not the first to be duped by a Potemkin Village. Catherine the Great—let us call her Cate—had little patience for mediocrity. Not in matters of state, and certainly not in matters of the bedroom. Russia, like her men, had to perform.

Among her many clades were Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Together, they helped her seize power (in more ways than one) from her husband, Peter III, a man apparently deficient in both governance and… extras.

Potemkin, the more ambitious of the two, was dispatched south to oversee newly acquired territories, including Crimea. Orlov remained behind to take care of things.

Distance breeds insecurity. And in Potemkin’s case, creativity.

When the Empress announced her intention to tour Crimea in 1787, Potemkin faced a problem: the place was a mess. War had done what war does—leave behind ruins, not reports. But explanations would not do. Cate did not entertain excuses.

So Potemkin built her a reality she could admire. Cardboard villages.

Along the banks of the Dnieper, villages appeared—orderly, cheerful, alive. Peasants sang. Smoke rose from chimneys. Fireworks punctuated the illusion. As the Empress’s barge drifted past, everything suggested prosperity. But it was all veneer.

Then the barge moved on.

Behind her, the villages vanished—cardboard packed up, carted downstream, and reassembled overnight for the next royal viewing. A travelling development theatre.

History has since debated the scale of this deception, but the phrase endured: Potemkin villages—facades built to impress, not to function.

Now, bring it home.

The National Youth Service, originally a grand idea, has become a stage full of uniforms, drills, and choreography. Youths are told they are great warriors, nation-builders, unstoppable.

But behind the parade? Gloom.

Some did the real work—for a pittance. Others choreographed the optics. And somewhere between procurement forms and supply offices, money evaporated with the efficiency of a magician’s trick.

The dance was convincing, but while some marched, others moved swiftly and precisely – files moved, tenders approved, and vouchers paid.

Even definitions became elastic. “Youth” stretched generously to accommodate those whose skins had given up the fight with gravity. If the creativity in definitions and accounting were redirected to engineering, we might have paved entire counties.

Instead, we paved narratives. To Jubilee honchos, perception is everything. That politics can fix what reality cannot. So we invested in lipstick on Thika Road and called it BRT.

Then came the rain. Rain does not negotiate with illusions. It does not respect press releases and executive orders. It washes, it reveals, it insists. Soon the whitewash was gone—along with sections of road, fragments of budgets, and, tragically, lives lost to potholes that should never have existed.

Potemkin would have admired the effort.

But even he, old sly fox that he was, might have asked: at what point does the performance become more expensive than the truth?