24 April 2008
Nairobi — A sleepy village having its son as a surgeon will no doubt spring into ecstasy to celebrate the achievement to this revered profession, the same way a ministerial post would be received with joy.
And with the new political dispensation where some MPs are grumbling after being left out of the Cabinet, it is an enviable 'blessing'.
Mbita MP, Otieno Kajwang, he of the Mapambano tune, knows this too well. Which is why he hid in the bedroom with his darling awaiting the historic announcement and immediately took to a jig after he was propelled to fly the flag.
His village, which seldom boasts of a kilometre of tarmac, might have been in a jovial mood too.
And like a surgeon who has just taken the Hippocratic Oath at the medicine school during graduation, he was a happy man.
But as Yusuf K Dawood says in his masterpiece, Behind the Mask, this profession has its tribulations that would not come out at face value unless one chats with a willing surgeon.
So Kajwang' took up the appointment with verve, being the second since independence to fly the flag in Rusinga Island, and gave out his cellphone number, where the public could channel their complaints directly to him.
But on Wednesday, the former student leader confessed that it has not been easy at Nyayo House, where he is to register persons and issue passports to citizens wanting to fly out.
"I gave out my cellphone number, but I am now overwhelmed, the complaints are numerous," poor Kajwang' confessed to MPs.
And with this, just like Dawood, the minister revealed what lies behind the 'flag and the fuel guzzler': A glamorous appointment prima face but
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