Two bombshells of the week: Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji declined to charge former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i with some lame-ass offences the cops had dreamt up after sweating their former boss at Mazingira House for nine hours.
This was followed by a double salvo; one a tweet from Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru which quoted the former CS as saying: “We are ready to welcome @WilliamsRuto in Gusiiland and that is the unity we want as Omugusii leaders. We have arranged everything ahead of his tour and we urge all leaders across the country to join us in welcoming the President.”
The other was a widely circulated photo of Dr Matiang’i and Education CS Ezekiel Machogu at a meeting and the allegation that they were planning the President’s visit to Kisii. The broad hint is that Dr Matiang’i has turned. But, let me tell this story in a more relaxed, fun manner.
Cardi B is banned in my house. I’m a linguist, that’s what I read, and I have a professionally cold-blooded attitude towards profanity. I’m not stuck up about swear words. I believe the words are innocent; meaning is by convention.
As we said, there is nothing doggish about ‘dog’, society has just agreed it should refer to that domestic canine. We could as easily agree that, from tomorrow, the term should refer to the domestic, milk-giving, four-legged bovine.
I’m not an authoritarian figure around the house, I’m not given to banning stuff. But I made an exception because I felt that the music is not just vulgar; it is horribly, mindlessly offensive.
The refrain to WAP is so thoughtlessly and repetitively grating that one wonders whether there is a setting, outside of a crack house, where this type of thing is enjoyed. That is just my opinion and it reflects a position that is at variance with my core belief, which is to be liberal, tolerant and accommodating.
Something about James Comey, the FIB director fired by Donald Trump, in a Frontline documentary on PBS, stuck in my mind. An interviewee said that Mr Comey behaved as if he was the only righteous person in whatever organisation he worked at and that whatever he believed to be the right course, the rest of the folks basically had to fall in line.
I think he is a strong-willed idealist, the kind that sometimes changes the world, at other times makes fearsome mistakes. In this case, he disregarded advice not to brief Trump about the so-called “London dossier”, in which it was claimed the former President had been indiscreet during a visit to Moscow in his earlier life and that Russian intelligence had kompromat (dirt) on him.
Trump thought he was being threatened—don’t joke with me, this is what I have on you—and he loathed and finally fired Comey. Idealism is great but risky.
Logic students of Dr Munyeye will remember, most vaguely, the lesson on the four tests of truth: Consensus (Does the majority believe it is true?); Coherence (Does it rationally make sense?); Correspondence (Is it supported by what we experience with our senses?); and Pragmatism (Does it work? Does it serve any use?).
In fairness, I probably should warn folks that I read philosophy 30 years ago and even the tests of truth are not just four; there are many more, including revelation!
Breathing oxygen-rich air on the farm in Makandune and thinking about Dr Matiang’i, sitting on a bench within a spitting distance of a cell at DCI HQ, I’d not be surprised if he took a ruthlessly pragmatic decision that would get him out of trouble and allow him a stab at survival. We might condemn him for turning, but there isn’t a hell of a lot one can achieve from the confines of a cell.
Balance restored
This brings me to Mr Haji’s decision that there is no evidence to sustain a conspiracy charge. Mr Haji has freed a hell of a lot of people, arguing that their prosecution was political and there wasn’t sufficient evidence to sustain the charges—never mind that trials were ongoing. Fair enough, we thought, but many of those folks seemed to have close links with the new government and they appeared to have been cleansed as a political reward.
I think, by declining to charge Dr Matiang’i, Mr Haji has restored a balance of some sort: If it was wrong to bring the old prosecutions and they had to be terminated, it is equally wrong to institute fresh dodgy ones.
Moral? It is OK to sometimes do what works and you could get in trouble by being a pain in the butt. And whatever you do, stay the hell out of jail.
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I have been following on Twitter, my favourite end of social media, the apparent execution of two suspects by some special task force of the police.
They were photographed under arrest, sitting calmly on the ground and no AK-47s in evidence. Then they were no longer alive, having conjured rifles from the ether and threatened the officers’ lives.
How come this kind of jazz is still afoot? BY DAILY NATION