How I fell in rival’s trap in bid to reward top KCPE performers

MCA Gwinso

Whenever someone says politics is a dirty game, my rival Alfafa comes to mind.

This man, whose only mission in life is to grab my MCA seat, is ever looking for ways to bring me down.

I am surprised he still has supporters despite — perhaps because of — his openly nefarious deeds. I am now scheduled to appear in court this week, thanks to his unbridled malice.

After the release of the KCPE exam results last week, I thought it wise to reward the top performers in my ward. I needed to do this immediately, and beat Alfafa at it. 

This rival of mine had outfoxed me and hosted the KCPE candidates to a party before they began the exams. I hear he promised to gift the top performers immediately the results were out.

I also hear during the event, he ‘forgave’ the parents of the candidates for electing an uncaring MCA who had not even bothered to wish their children success in the exams. What Cheek! So this time I had to beat him at his game.

I asked my handler, Mokonyonyo Spoiler, aka Moks, to make arrangements for the event.

“Let us call it a thanksgiving fete, and make sure we invite only the top performers. Those who scored 380 marks and above.”

“But those might be very few,” Moks replied.

“The fewer, the better. After all, these are Covid times, and we do not want a big crowd,” I asserted.

“Are we also inviting their parents and guardians?”

I thought this was the dumbest question I ever heard from my assistant, and almost told him so.

What on earth would I do with a gathering composed purely of youngsters below voting age? I needed adults for my 2022 purposes, Ala!

Moks immediately hit the ground running to establish how many candidates we were expecting. We agreed if the number was not so big, we would use my compound for the event.

To our surprise, we discovered there were less than 20 students with who met the threashold.

“What of 350 and above?” I asked.

“That will give us about 50 people,” Moks replied.

That sounded reasonable. If 50 came with their guardians, that would give us about 100 people in total.

These I could comfortably host in my compound, with sufficient social distancing. I gave Moks the go ahead to send invitations for the event on Saturday.

On Friday afternoon, when we were done with shopping for the items needed, I received a call from Alfafa himself.

“Bw Gwinso, I am told you have invited top KCPE performers for a party?” he said after we had exchanged pleasantries. 

I was not sure of his intentions, so I was hesitant to respond right away.

“Well, this is my advice,” he continued. “You can take it or leave it. I think you had better host all the KCPE candidates, since they are all our children.

After all, there is 100 per cent transition — all of them are proceeding to secondary school — so none of them is really better than the other. Think about it,” he said and hang up.

That sounded reasonable. Furthermore, this would raise my profile in the ward by portraying me as a caring leader. I shared this with Moks who agreed with me. 

We had to make quick adjustments: Buy more stuff, send more invitations and look for another venue. My compound could not accommodate the larger number we now expected. Thankfully, we got a hall in one of the schools. 

On Saturday, the invitees started arriving by 9am, though we had indicated we were to begin at noon.

By 11am, the hall was almost packed to capacity. Although all of them had face masks on, I was worried about the social distancing.

The hall now looked smaller that I had thought. Another problem: How sure were we that all were KCPE candidates?

I was still racking my brains wondering how to take care of the situation when they arrived — the police. 

One of them walked straight to me and said, “Bw MCA, we are arresting you for disobeying a presidential directive and breaching Covid-19 safety protocols.”

“But this is not a political rally,” I protested. “It is just a thanksgiving ceremony.”

“It does not matter. You will explain that at the station, twende.”

At the police station I recorded a statement and parted with a substantial amount in police bond.

I am waiting for my court appearance this week. It is obvious Alfafa’s hand is in all this, but hata siskii vibaya! I will live to fight another day. – [email protected]