Emmanuel Mutugi

Live life
What's the worst that could happen?

[Silas Nyanchwani @nyanchwani]

I have been building scenarios about what happens after 2027.
What happens if Ruto gets a second term?
What happens if we get fresh blood, say Sifuna? Or old blood that is not Ruto, say Kalonzo or Matiang'i?
This is not a scaremongering exercise. Some people think nothing can get worse than it already is.
Ten years ago, we started documenting the collapse of the Kenyan economy. Newspapers were awash with profit warnings from big corporates, and between 2016 and 2020 so many people lost their jobs. Many companies closed shop. Others fled a toxic business environment, high power costs, punitive taxes, and cheap Chinese imports. The COVID-19 pandemic bought Uhuru two vital years and let him finish his term as a "statesman." The lockdown absorbed his accumulated failures, and the handshake with Raila bought him more time. Otherwise, what Ruto experienced on June 24, 2024 would very likely have happened to Uhuru ahead of the 2022 election. Between Uhuru's exit and Ruto's takeover, you saw how busy the auctioneers' pages became, disposing of cars and household goods belonging to a middle class drowning in debt.
Hear me out.
I watched my friends get laid off, one by one. If 20 of my friends were employed in 2015, by 2020 nearly half had lost their jobs, and only a few had found another meaningful job or built a business with modest success. COVID-19 shaved off another five. And the thing about losing your job after 30 is that the chances of getting another one shrink with every passing minute. In between the end of COVID and Ruto’s four years, more friends have lost jobs, and only 2 or 3 in my closest circle, one can say, are doing relatively well. And we are not young.
Nairobi, and Kenya generally, is deceptively vibrant on the surface. You could mistake us for a rich country. But beneath the smiles, people sleep hungry. Families are coping badly, adjusting to job losses and inflation while responsibilities keep piling up. I have seen marriages end purely on economic grounds. I have seen friends sink into depression. I have seen men and women become homeless, and others forced back to the village. Saddest of all, most millennials who made it were the first generation of money in their families, so going back home is a reversal of fortune no parent ever hoped for.
In the past, when parents sent us food from the village, it was cultural, because fresh ethnic delicacies are hard to find in the city. If your Luo mother packed you omena, or my Kisii mother packed me millet flour and bitter vegetables, it was to make sure we ate the best from home. For the last ten years, those big buses from the village have carried food to Nairobi to help people survive the harsh times. It is a strange, informal system, cumulatively worth billions, and a survival mechanism for the city's poorest. And for the middle class.
I do not remember a time in my adulthood when all of us were this broke. There is no longer a working friend to bail out the jobless one, and the few who are working are overburdened by black tax. I recently coined a word for the help we now extend to one another as friends and strangers: buddy tax.
You wake up and your inbox already has ten requests. You are clutching at straws, and you have no one to bail you out yourself.
Businesspeople will tell you how few people are buying. Many now sit on stranded goods and assets they cannot dispose of.
Kenya being an African country, we stay quiet about it. Our economy has collapsed, but we have a backup: the culture of dependence. Nearly three-quarters of diaspora remittances go into helping family. Some of it is ordinary responsibility, a parent paying school fees or a medical bill. Everyone does that. But there is the extra burden of carrying relatives who, in a functional economy, would take care of themselves. Now every well-off adult has siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, colleagues and college friends to bail out. Ten years ago, black tax was maybe 5 to 10 percent. Now it has gone up by about 200 percent.
They say you should not give a man fish; teach him to fish. Indeed, most families have spent their meagre resources on agents who ship a member off to the Gulf, if only to make them independent. But not many families have a loose Sh200,000 to Sh600,000 lying around. Many sell what little they own to raise it, and that is before counting the millions lost to Nairobi conmen.
Some just grind harder, dreading every school opening, dreading disease, dreading any disaster that demands real money.
Maybe it is only my friends and relatives going through A LOT. How are things on your end? How are you coping? With school fees? With medical bills? With the cost of living?
What I know is that black tax cannot solve problems a government should solve. We live in a country where common public goods have been privatized. Good education is only available in private schools. Decent healthcare comes from private hospitals, while public ones operate in a highly politicized environment, caught between a transactional national government and counties sometimes run by governors who dropped out in Class Two. Security in some neighborhoods is outsourced to private firms. Public transport is private. All of it piles costs on citizens endlessly. Our parents survived because public school and public university, discriminatory as admission was, were affordable. Ruto slashed the money for secondary school students, and his university funding model was never going to work. That means more pressure on parents.
Before we get to Ruto's weaknesses, we must admit how broken this country was before he inherited the mess. And sadly, he was uniquely unqualified to take us forward, because his personal ambition for wealth is opposed to the collective aspirations of Kenyans.
The period between 2027 and 2032 is the critical phase of Project Kenya. Either we sink for good under a Ruto second term, or we start a path to recovery with whatever Plan B we can find.
We had no room for error in 2017. We messed up big time, even after the Supreme Court tried to correct the blunder. Some Kenyans still voted the dynamic duo back in. Then 2022 was supposed to be a bridge into the future, and again, some Kenyans looked at Ruto and saw a man worth a chance.
And now 2027 is upon us.
The unvarnished truth is that a Ruto win- and he stands a chance of winning by any means necessary- is unfathomable. It would mean that he and Uhuru together condemned three generations of Kenyans to permanent poverty. That is saying something.
Go broke in your 30s or 40s and see how hard it is to recover in a weak economy like ours. You simply waste away. That has been the fate of many Kenyans, especially those who graduated in the last twelve years.
Beyond the speculation about our constitution, we will remain tied to useless projects that will never open up the economy and whose sole purpose is to line the pockets of Ruto and his financiers.
, we are staring into an https://t.co/PSVu61bHG4 rescue the economy, we have to think outside the box, and sadly, no presidential candidate has articulated a believable economic vision. Beyond#WANTAM
We cannot sustain an economy where more than half of what we collect goes to debt, the next portion disappears into people's pockets, and whatever remains must compete against the needs of 55 million people.
A Kalonzo presidency does not promise much. Maybe less corruption, and if he hires the right team, the economy can expand. As a positive, if moribund, force, he may at least let us heal at a psychic level, and feel safe with a man who will not lie to us unnecessarily or reach for brutal force.
A Matiang'i presidency may promise Magufuli-style leadership, which will appeal to those who like that kind of thing. With the right ideas, it could work. With the wrong ideas, it would be a disaster.
A Sifuna presidency promises a generational shift, as he would be our first millennial president. Sifuna is educated and inclined to respect human rights. With the right team, he would understand the needs of millennials, Gen Zs and those coming after. He is less drawn to shiny things, and I doubt he would oversee needless mega projects designed to fund himself or his next campaign. I am not naive enough to assume there would be no theft under him, but sometimes we are talking about scale.
Some say the best president we ever had was Kibaki. There was corruption under Kibaki, certainly, and in 50 years of government service he was not the cleanest man. But he never amassed a fortune to match any of the other four presidents. What you notice is that Kenya grew in leaps and bounds under him. He gave us a hint of what happens when a president is less interested in accumulating personal wealth and more inclined to help the country, and when money, if it comes, comes second to his aspirations.
Over to you

[blue @bluewmist]

i have no desire to be rich so i can buy a rolex or a lamborghini.

i want to be rich so i can control my time and go to the gym at 3pm on a monday.

sit at a cafe and relax for an hour on a rainy afternoon.

so i can cook meals at home with fresh ingredients.

spend on my family and friends without worrying about a budget.

that's my idea of a rich life, not the fake consumerist idea shoved down my throat.

[Eric @amerix]

Here are 10 African books you should read to understand your cultural background.

#ManDay

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome

[Emmanuel Mutugi @mutugi_emmanuel]

@thesnoodcompany @jefniqw @bantigito I have tested this snood out, and let me tell you Maina, this is where comfort is at! @thesnoodcompany @bantigito

[Bitange Ndemo, PhD, CBS @bantigito]

My Fourth Year students @thesnoodcompany in their class project came up with the snood company.

[#KITFest2026 @kitfest_ke]

KCA UNIVERSITY will be presenting a Musical Play, Simba Bazenga 🎭

Date: 13th November 2021
Time: 5PM-7PM
Tickets: 1000 KShs, (500 KShs for Kids/Children)
Venue: Kenya National Theatre

#KITFEST2021
#SimbaBazenga #Musical

[Emmanuel Mutugi @mutugi_emmanuel]

@NRGRadioKenya @iamdaryakish @SeanMPreezy @ShaqoEl @djtwinizzle Bad n boujee all day!🔥It takes me back to when I was a fresha, young and stupid 😂

[Global Folder @Global_Folder]

THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT COLLONEL MUAMMAR GADDAFI'S DEATH. A LEGEND BETRAYED AND KILLED BY HIS OWN BRAINWASHED PEOPLE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE WEST #Thread

[Emmanuel Mutugi @mutugi_emmanuel]

@NRGRadioKenya @ShaqoEl @SeanMPreezy @iamdaryakish @djtwinizzle We dem boyz just makes you want to have a barbecue with the guys....🔥🔥🔥Ni vile tu corona imetufungia...otherwise sahii ningekuwa nanunua makaa😂😂

Listening from Ngong 👌🏾👌🏾

[Crazy Kennar @crazy_kennar]

POLITICIANS WHEN ELECTIONS ARE NEAR😂😂😂😂
@stanley_omondi1
Tag your area politician😂😂😂
#crazykennar
#contentcartel

[ClubPark @TheClubPark]

FIFA have decided to bring back their awards this year and will give an award to the "best player in the world".

The nominees will be announced after the European competitions' conclusion and the awards show will be held in October.

Justice for Robert Lewandowski. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Badmano1 @BadmanBracci]

Here is my submission for the #SupaMojoCreativeAwards @IndomieKenya

[Emmanuel Mutugi @mutugi_emmanuel]

@NRGRadioKenya @ShaqoEl @SeanMPreezy @djtwinizzle @iamdaryakish Good morning is the clean take here🔥🔥🔥it's got a laid-back vibe which is what makes it fire

[Okong' Okuna @XivTroy]

My big brother brought his gf home last year. She was an immediate hit. Said little, laughed much. A Master's degree student & banker. She would join my mom & her sisters in the kitchen. My old man would call us (me & my brother). This is what he had to say:

[mwaniki 🇰🇪 @mwanikhii]

This is my classmate and she needs some help. Please contribute however much you can. RT too. She will appreciate the effort. ❤

[𝖬𝖺𝗎𝗋𝗂𝖼𝖾 𝖮𝗇𝗂𝖺𝗇𝗀'𝗈 @moniango]

For those who love documentaries, here's a list of about 250 docus on YouTube you can watch as you #StayAtHome.
A Thread.

[Emmanuel Mutugi @mutugi_emmanuel]

@Ciku_Yegon Paka lotion kwa miguu uache kutusumbua hapa😑😑😂😂😂