I was thinking about a short-cut expression that my mother used to use for everything that did not work or was not appropriate for the task. She would describe it as a “broken panga”. If you understand how a panga is used for weeding, then you will get a sense of how ineffective a broken panga would be.

When Cabinet appointments were made, I remember the sometimes-confusing political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi, congratulating the President and arguing approvingly, that appointments should be rewarded for loyalty and not competence, or an argument to that effect.

'Broken pangas'

Some of the appointments in Cabinet and elsewhere are broken pangas, they are loyal but they will struggle. How many can “doyen” reasonably assist to do their jobs before the ship begins to take a list? How many broken pangas can an effective team carry?

In all fairness, the exams came early in the life of the government, there were lots of steep learning curves, and many people were still finding their way around their big desks. But a government elected on the promise of fixing the things broken by its predecessors should not perform worse than them, especially an important one like education, as a rule of thumb.

I recently went to a supermarket in Mathira, the place where Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s big gums were trained to crush yams and waru, and I took a walk around. Generally, I would not know the price of things. In my tribe, it is forbidden for men to show an interest in kitchens and kitchen things, leaving such petty and menial assignments to their wives. (I know, I’m sleeping outside with the dogs tonight). I was taken aback by the prices.