We’ll damage your eardrums until you fuel our cost of living
Poor households are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living much more than their better-off counterparts.
Fuel prices went up, for the umpteenth time, this week. If the forecast is to be believed, they’re on course to breaking the high jump Olympic record, currently held by supporters of your favourite African dictator.
No one can say we didn’t see this coming. Kenyans are known to have eyes that see a lot of things that are yet to happen. They already know who will be their next President, saw Johnson Sakaja’s lies before they happened, and some are even putting an exact date on the second coming of Jesus.
Not long ago, the government attempted to crack the whip on oil marketers taking their kindness for weakness. It resulted in protest letters bouncing off desks like hip-hop rappers, as blame games replaced football as Kenya’s number one favourite sport.
Since then, the government decided that instead of building bridges towards a prosperous future with oil marketers, they’re going to ask all Kenyans to report to the fuel station staffroom for collective punishment.
Kenyans now look like the stepchildren of an abusive co-wife. Our father is currently gathering his pegs from the line as he prepares to leave office in under two months. He’s left us in the hands of MPs who have since gone for holiday after gifting themselves a hefty send-off sum, enough to bribe the angels to wash away their sins.
Human wall There’s no one left to speak for us. We’ve been told; if we desire to recall the voice of our MPs from holiday, we’ll have to waylay them at their nearest campaign rally, and only if we manage to breach the armed human wall erected by our taxes and convince the cubic bouncers not to hoist us like a flag.
The bad news doesn’t end there.
The minister responsible for keeping our public purse from pickpockets now says the government fuel subsidy is crowding out public funds and they’re going to divert that cash into needy causes, like thanking MPs for sleeping in Parliament and buying tea for those going to take pictures with the Deputy President at his official residence.
We’re aware times are tough for everyone and the government is also struggling to balance the books. It’s not a good place to be in, and we send our most sincere empathies to those in charge of keeping a brave face in public when things are falling apart in private. We would have lent the government our broad shoulders to lean on in these tough times had the same government not put collapsing weight on us before.
Kenyans can no longer take any extra burden on their shoulders. We’re thinly spread on the ground, a heat wave is baking families up North as the food prices batter the urban poor in our shanty towns.
We understand you’re not the one who told Russia and Ukraine to choose beef when they had alternative dietary means to sustain a healthy relationship. You also have no control over international shipping routes and the only oil prices you could set are those that dried up along the Turkana belt.
This public notice will hit a brick wall; but we shall wake up next week and try again.
We’re Kenyans, and if there’s one thing we’re famous for, it’s that we never bend over backwards without damaging the eardrums of those sleeping on the job.
You’re the government. We gave you votes so you can give us change when we turn up at your kiosk for help. For as long as the taxpayer keeps giving you money to stash in your offshore accounts, they deserve to be fed like the cash cow they are. And feed them you will.
