Politicians owe us little people some transparency

WHAT A WEEK! The Ugandan community here will know about Eriya Kategaya’s death. Sad indeed. I didn’t even know the man had been sick! The other sad news is of course Hugo Chavez. Not that we didn’t see it coming but it’s still shocking. I wish him a peaceful rest but didn’t like the way his illness was handled. I know it’s politics and everything must be strategised but this secrecy doesn’t help anyone. All it does is get conspiracy theorists’ speculative juices flowing and before you know it, the US Government is being accused of giving Chavez the cancer. You’d be surprised how many people actually believe this stuff. It has happened before, the tendency to withhold crucial information about high profile figures, particularly regarding their health. Remember Nigeria’s Umar Yar’Adua? Robert Mugabe also has some of us checking the obituary pages regularly because we know we aren’t about to get any official updates. I think it’s about time politicians stopped all the secrecy. They owe us little people some transparency, if not with our taxes and resources, at least with the state of their health, whether good, poor or in-between. Perhaps if Venezuelans had known that their beloved Chavez had only three months to live, they might have voted differently. Instead, they were first told it wasn’t cancer, then “yes it was cancer but he has beaten it” and finally, “Pray for our dear leader who’s fighting for his life…” Now new elections have to be held in a month’s time and that costs money, lots of money that could be put to better use for education or healthcare for that matter. After all, Chavez sought treatment not at home but in Cuba, as did Yar’Adua in Saudi Arabia and Kategeya in Nairobi. Mugabe’s frequent flyer miles to Singapore and God knows where else since the facilities back home are not good enough are also well-documented. It’s the same case in almost every developing nation and all we ordinary people can do is hope we don’t fall sick because government ‘aided’ medical facilities are ill-equipped and private healthcare is simply too expensive. God help us indeed. Onto the Kenyan elections, what an anti-climax to the much-anticipated polls? Way too many things went wrong. The IEBC makes Uganda look good, ghost voters, mysterious disappearances from the voters’ register and all. How does a country that gave us Barack Obama allow this mess to happen? Good thing both Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta have been right there in government and the blame for this circus of an election lies squarely on their shoulders. They should have prepared better and wouldn’t be talking about validating invalid votes now. But then again, it could be that someone set out to deliberately ‘confuse’ voters to get ahead like it’s being alleged. Remember what I said about technology? How it intimidates me and how I don’t get it? Looks like I’m not the only one. Kenyans should demand their money back from whoever won the tender to supply those electronic tally machines. Knowing how things go down in Africa, I wouldn’t be surprised if the trail leads right back to someone close to the campaign. That the election was even that close is disturbing. Kenyans need to rise above tribalism or risk walking the same path Nigeria is. By the way, I’m team Raila and have never forgiven Kibaki for 2008. Uhuru’s name should never have been anywhere near that ballot paper and it’s things like these that have left many of us disillusioned about politics and elections in general. That and the fact that as many people have pointed out, it’s not the votes that count but rather the people who do the counting. The real winners here are the Kenyan people whose patience has really been tested.To be continued…