Nonsense. A word.

ˈnänˌsens,ˈnänsəns/

noun

spoken or written words that have no meaning or make no sense.

"he was talking absolute nonsense"

synonyms: rubbish, gibberish, claptrap, balderdash, blarney;

informal:  baloney, rot, moonshine, garbage, jive, tripe, drivel, bilge, bull, guff, bunk, bosh, BS, eyewash, piffle, poppycock, phooey, hooey, malarkey, hokum, twaddle, gobbledygook, codswallop, flapdoodle, hot air, dated;  bunkum, tommyrot, vulgar slang; bullshit, crap, crapola

“that’s a lot of damn nonsense”

foolish or unacceptable behavior.

"put a stop to that nonsense, will you?"

Synonyms; mischief, naughtiness, bad behaviour, misbehaviour, misconduct, misdemeanour, pranks, tricks, clowning, buffoonery, funny business

Informal; tomfoolery, monkey business, shenanigans, hanky-panky

“she stands no nonsense”

Nonsense.  Struts the word, unbidden into my head.  I’m looking at what’s trending on Twitter, reading posts in a politics WhatsApp group I belong to, looking at what’s posted on various FaceBook pages and timelines.  Nonsense.

Party this.  Party that.  Coalition there.  Independent them.  Nanzzenzz.  In Keyanese.

It is deafening nonzzenzzical hopelessness.  At least to me it is - at this point.  The current opposition is tarred with the same brush as the current government. 

2017 has just began. It is an election year.  And soon I will have to choose.  Put my mark next to names on a ballot paper.  I have choices, but I think the difference is the same.  Or the same is the difference.  However you want to put it, however you want to say it.  But the meaning is the same.  Nanzzenzz.

I am required to make a choice between my being fried on the pan or boiling in the kettle.  Either way – I’ll end up dead.  Really not a choice is it.

I’m ready to make a choice.  I’ve registered – how could I not have.  The IEBC crew sometimes use my plastic chairs at my gate as they run their gig.  Tomorrow I think I’ll take them a pitcher of cold water every so often – the poor guys, they have multiple umbrellas but still – it is hot out there.  Pause. Perhaps not. They might then ask for loo privileges.  Or maybe I can charge them 20 bob per trip.  Illegal – no license to run a pay loo.

I’ve registered.  I must to vote.  I have to vote. I am a patriot.  It is my God given duty.  Sometimes I ask Him why why why.  Why Lord did you get me into Kenya?  Were there were no other parts un-festering for my soul to get to at the time of my conception?  Why Kenya Lord?  Why me here Lord?

My village caustic tongue would equate my given task of voting to feeding chickens with water with a spoon, playing a guitar for a goat or painting the neighbours mongrel.

Nanzzenzz. Flits across my neural somethings.

I’ve discussed this with others.  Various views and positions exist.  There is the sycophant rhetoric spewing unengaged brain coasting on the leader’s sniffles and grunts voting for the party – six suit material conversations – probably in cheap polyester.  There is the “I’m not going to wake up and waste an iota of my time to look at ballot papers which might as well be empty”.  Then the “I’m going to write my own name on all ballots and vote for myself”.  Or the “I will just better go and mark them before they steal in my name”.  And the “I’ll vote the lesser evil”.

I am not convinced.  All these are not my options.

Who will I vote for?  The MCA that never responded to my email?  The lady rep whose name I do not know?  The Papa Toshes, Mreshes wa Nai whose peoples – used to be called the jeshi [army], I have no clue if they now have a new moniker - spray paint our walls and plaster their run of the mill posters on to our lamp posts and gates in the dead of night.  Unsightly defacing of private property.  The Papas and the Mreshes should come with all their Toshes and Nais, buckets and scrappers in hand and clean it all up.  I cannot vote for people who do not respect people’s property, or at least a sense of order and ambience maintenance. 

I think I’ll be the person who goes into the voting booth and draws sad crying faces on the ballot papers.  Is that childish?  Silly and immature?  Or the simplest and most unsophisticated form of protest?  Maybe I’ll draw pukey faces.  Because, I am fed up to vomit point.

None. And I repeat.  None.  Of the people offering themselves, at whichever level or rather trying to thrust their way down my throat [and election campaigns have not yet started –  have they? - shudder my sensibilities when they do] are worthy of my vote.  At least not in my locality.  Or that I have heard.

I'm looking for radical, no holds barred leadership.  Someone with values, with nothing else but determination, an ethical backbone and doesn't give a crap about anything else but the good of a nation. I'm looking for someone who's not looking for what position does for them, but what they can do for me.  For my children.  And our future – mine is definitely shorter than theirs, but I’ll be watching from heaven and living vicariously through them in this reborn nation.

I'm looking. And I know I'm not alone.

So meanwhile I am voting for Nanzzenzz - whoever that might be.  I hear their first name is Other.  Or Utter.

Otherwise? 

* muchira c.n. is a Kenyan blogger at not yet pundit.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

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