Disclaimer: politicians do not necessarily ask men to kill for them. Well, others do, albeit not implicitly. Men are wired differently. Some men do not give politicians the time of day. And then some men eat and drink from the poisoned chalice of their political leaders and kingpins.
Folks, I’ve been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt; with a politician’s face and name on it. In my ‘hood, “boddie” is a slang for a bodybuilder. Boddie also means a tough guy who knows how to throw his hands.
Some friends and I moonlighted as boddies – aka bodyguards – for politicians, doing politicians’ dirty work in my younger years. This is a phase many young unemployed men in ‘hoods across the country go through.
Unfortunately, some overstay in this boddie phase. They live in squalor, barely raise families and die depending on accursed handouts from politicians. They go from being boddies to virtually living in body bags, for a politician’s sake.
I was a reggae fanatic. On Sundays when we went to reggae jam sessions with my crew from Jericho Posse, the song, Bodyguard , by Steel Pulse reminded me of how risky my boddie hustle was, and who politicians really are:
“Bodyguard, I wouldn’t like your job
Polytricksters. Politicians are masters at stirring up emotions and passions. They say something and, one minute, you think straight; but the next, a man’s blood is boiling. As a boddie, it is easy to kill for a politician. The murder is almost always premeditated. One blow or kick leads to another. Before you know it, you find that – alone or as a mob – you have spilt innocent blood. That act alters, for worse, the trajectory of one’s life.
Here’s my advice to anyone passionate about politics or a personality, to the extent that it becomes a matter of life and death. Before a man kills for a politician, the man should ask the politician to put his own neck on the chopping block. If – and this is a big if – the politician puts his neck in harm’s way, the man should not trust the politician. Man, you can’t trust this lot any further than you can throw them. Either the chopping block is made in China, or the neck does not belong to the politician.
As the slang goes, a politician “atakuacha kwa mataa”. This means that, in case number two hits the fan when a boddie is in action, a politician will save his own skin and leave you in hot water. Mind you, that’s hot water the politician may have boiled by speech or actions. “Polytricksters drinking human blood.” Sometimes that blood belongs to a hapless boddie.
Before a man kills for a politician, the man should do his “research”. The man should visit Kamiti Maximum Prison, and speak to death row inmates. He should speak to families of murder victims, and get an inkling of, not just their pain, but the guilt that he will carry for the rest of his life. He should also speak to families of the incarcerated men. Do you want to know what they will tell you happened to them after the man of the house was handed the death penalty? They also got the death penalty. Everything they held near and dear died.
A man should not kill nothing, not even a pesky fly, for a politician. Let him swat the damn thing himself. But if a man must kill for a politician, then he should kill ignorance. Because? Men perish for lack of knowledge.
