KAMA SI SISI SIONI

The lover of music I am, you expect that on the groove awards Saturday I was glued to screen to watch to get every detail of the event. The event could only be christened godly because it was perfectly planned and executed. It flowed well with one thing leading to another; performance to performance and award to award. The event had come hot on heels on the Chaguo La Teeniez (CHAT) awards that had happened roughly a week or two before. Of course you expect I watched that one too beginning to end but the emcees and the flow left a bad taste in mouth. It was a total disappointment with those running the show not even sure of what they were supposed to do. The sound was disastrously bad and the audience a handful; very poorly attended. The two made it clear to all and sundries that gospel music had now taken over; officially.

However, the proceedings of the Groove awards event kept a knot in my stomach the whole time just wondering whether my greatest musician of all time would scoop any award. My tension eased when he won the best Hip Hop song of the year with his Hit single, Hello. Deep down my heart though, I knew that was too little for him coz he’d done too much for the gospel scene. I thought he deserved more. Then came time for the Male artist of the year; arguably the biggest award in that event. I got tense just hoping it would fall on my man. The announcement was a little ‘not too good for me’ when Daddy Owen was given the hat. I respect daddy and have always considered him the dad of Kenyan gospel music. That was kinda acceptable to me but Juliani would be my choice anytime. When Daddy Owen went up the stage to receive the award, something shocking and unheard of before happened. He took it and said that he’s giving it to Juliani. My NTV channel went off the event immediately making me miss my man accepting the Male artist of the year award. I’ve never understood to this day why NTV were displeased with the happenings but it was obvious that Daddy thought and so did I that Juliani had done more than him over the year.

Juliani released his second album a few months ago and that one, I can’t get enough of it. He has also gone around the country’s varsities with his campaign dubbed Kama si sisi tour whose aim was to sensitize the youth of the need to take responsibility over their lives and to be agents to initiate the much needed change in the society. And he does well coz his performances are electrifying and inspirational. He does it with breaks to allow his audiences understand his lyrics and breaks to throw a word of positivity or the gospel of Christ to his audience. I call him the prophet of our time and have joked that if he was to start a cult, I would be his member number one.

One interesting thing about God is that he gave us freewill and ability to manipulate our minds. This power has done great things to humanity with technology changing every day and thus our lives. Christians however have received extra ability to spread morality and total dependency on God as an obligation of the whole human race. And Thus Jeremiah 1:10 “ see, today I appoint you over nations and Kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. ‘’ The power God has put in us as agents of change is immense and unimaginable and it’s high time Christians learnt to use our powers. Kutabadilishwa na nani kama si sisi? Asks the prophet. Kama si sisi sioni.

THE COST OF JUSTICE

To my own statistics, I feel 95% of Kenyans would be at pains defining the word justice. Injustice seems to make more sense to us than the former. And this is how it goes; somewhere in 2008, Truth, justice and reconciliation commission (TJRC) is established by an act of parliament with the aim of investigating the gross human rights violations and other historical injustices in Kenya happening between independence and the commission’s inception. The goal here was to contribute towards national unity, reconciliation, and healing. Talking of historical injustices calls to fore many ugly scenes including still unresolved deaths of high profile individuals like Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki, Robert Ouko and the list is endless. Politically motivated or otherwise, the killers remain in hiding. A much more ugly scene was the Wagalla massacre where our security forces went wild and slaughtered fellow Kenyans in the name of finding a final solution to the Somali problem. And when the TJRC was preparing to go out to seek the truth and bring healing, it’s chairman then, Amb. Betwell Kiplagat was said to have been involved in the killings and this paralyzed the TJRC for sometime.

Our history as a country is so ugly that we would rather keep quiet about it. There are many guilty people walking free and going about there businesses like innocent people and the law seems too slow to catch up with them. On the other hand, there are so many innocent people serving long sentences in prison for crimes they never committed. I watched lockdown on citizen TV some days back, of prisoners on death row, and some stories on innocent people already over 10 years in prison was heart rending. We can only hope that the man with the earring, Dr. Willy Mutunga, the nominee for chief justice would bring a magical adornment into our justice systems.

This week, Kamukunji electorate was set to elect their new MP after justice stripped one Simon Mbugua of that seat months ago. The number of MPs who’ve lost parliamentary seats through court process now stands at 10 in the current house. That sounds good for justice but some rulings the courts have done of late leaves less to be desired of the justice system. The latest was the court injunction stopping Kamukunji By-election just 2 days before the planned date draining the taxpayer around Ksh. 40M of course not counting all the monies the aspirants had already spent on campaigns. This was supposed to be justice to one aspirant who’d went to court after being barred by the IIEC from running. I just wonder whether justice for one party is justified if it means injustice to other parties. Just picture this; How much on average does it cost to organize a by election? 50M on the lower side. Multiply that by 10 (number of MPs who have lost their seat through electoral petitions). That means 500m Kenyan money. That makes me look at my pay slip and it’s painful that I pay more than 10K every month, money that easily  goes to waste in such wanton ways. That money, Half a B cash is enough to get ALL IDPs out of camps. We thus need badly some individuals to straighten our crooked justice system.

Talking of justice; we’d gone astray, our thoughts, deeds and actions always evil. God chose the blood of lambs to redeem us but we squandered the system and did business at the temple of God. The poor with no animals were to die in iniquity leaving forgiveness of sins a reserve of the rich. Only priests could go before God for other peoples’ sins. Then God thought of need to overhaul the whole justice system. He sent his only son, who’d take on our sins and guilt and as ‘sinner’ he was mistreated, persecuted and finally nailed on the cross for our sins. The result; we can now go directly to God and get forgiveness for our sins. If justice was to be done, we would have come to destruction for our sins but our loving God found a better way for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’

Thus we are made righteous coz justice over our sins Jesus took upon Himself.