Perhaps We Should Stop Heckling Politicians, We Should Just Beat Them Up — Opinion

Extortion, manipulation and blackmail is often an integral part of politics.

Lately, it has emerged that politicians are being heckled openly in the presence of the President of the Republic of Kenya for failure to adhere to the social contract they undertook while ascending into office. When politicians fail to deliver in that social contract they become prone to manipulation by the public.

Those who are able to directly apply the squeeze know that a politician’s weak spot is entanglements around sex, bribe or irregular employment of kin and kith.

Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa has now found himself in this awkward situation.

Advert

Firstly, it looks like he fell prey to an extortion racket that was being controlled by a western Kenya politician who governor Fernandes Barasa eventually tracked down.

In a harrowing scene from a video clip the guy with a hood over his head (mafia-execution-style) begs for his life and promises to return the money they had extorted from the governor and not to leak his nudes. The final part of this clip has a person who looks like Governor Fernandes Barasa and a man begging for his life in a car boot handcuffed .

Who is this man? And what finally became of him?

Secondly, extortion, blackmail and manipulation is a crime and the aggrieved can seek solutions from the courts of law. Unfortunately in this instances both the victim and culprit are criminals.

Power has an element of corrupting morals and those who have it, particularly in the (relatively new) Devolved Units are applying it in excesses. Maybe it’s time the Public Service Commission makes a declaration of one’s sexual orientation an integral part of the job interview.

Claims of sodomy by senior officials in Siaya, Tana River and now Kakamega are, to say the least, frightening. If, indeed, politicians who display this habits are known, they should not be Heckled but Beaten up.

DalanewsKE

Editorial Friday 22 March, 2024