If Uhuru Kenyatta, as the Chairman of the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Coalition Party, had taken secular artiste Ka-White Mwana wa White's political prophesy seriously, would he have survived the election loss?
It is hard to tell. But, people now say that he ignored it and paid the price of losing not only the national vote, but also the Mt Kenya kingpin position.
Ka-White had in December 2021 released the song Ngombo cia Wiyathi (Slaves of freedom), which became a national anthem in Mt Kenya region.
The song gained so much traction in Mt Kenya region and, despite local FM stations denying it airplay for fear of reprisal, it burst its way into the society and trended, criticising the president’s move to back Azimio leader Raila Odinga to succeed him.
And now, Ka-White has been vindicated.
The 7:27 minutes-long track cryptically talks of how a dawn was fast approaching “when they will know that it is not always that money rules and has its way…that a day was fast approaching when the fisherman would end up fishing himself with his own rod and bait”.
It was Ka-White’s personal best song. By the general election time, it had attracted 259,000 views and 782 comments.
In the song, the Nakuru County-born crooner, whose real name is James Kamau Njihia, tells his fans that he is not getting involved in the electoral politics “but I just want to tell the truth so that even if it kills me, I die in justice.”
He warned that the big man (President) was sick “and if you were to heed my advice, don’t be choosy about medicine to heal you for it is only the truth that will do you magic.”
He warned that people who cherished freedom were not happy. “If only our self-rule fighters were to rise from the dead and see how suffocated we are...how they strived in vain...how those who died did not matter…how the freedom they fought for was only benefiting the mighty few...”
“It is well with us...We are aware of that suffocation and we are content...But God is soon coming to deliver us.”
Touted as the possible heir to the late John De Mathew's prophetic political crooning in Mt Kenya region, Ka-White observed that, “you (President Uhuru) have committed the country to debts and begging.”
He crooned that there was an emerging trend "where the dynasties were ready to bring the country to a standstill at the thought of a commoner daring to dream of rising to power...so that the commoner could be hunted down like a stray buffalo".
In his song, he sang how leaders “were only talking of constitutional changes to consolidate grip on power and strategise on who will rule to guarantee themselves safety of their vast wealth.”
The song went on to warn the big man that “there are those in the Mountain toeing your line even when they are well aware that the ground is hostile...those whom you have captured and bonded in fear of consequences of going against you.”
Ka-White added that “the hunted will prevail and will drink from the dirty pool of water and survive.”
When the August 9 General Election votes were tallied, Ka-White's year-old prophesy came to pass when the Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya Coalition Party candidate Raila Odinga lost the election to UDA’s William Ruto.
Dr Ruto, then the deputy president, and his brigade in Mt Kenya prevailed and as Ka-White had predicted, “they drunk from the dirty waters of persecution and survived, the big man ending up fishing himself with own rod and bait.”
