Nation.Africa wants me to “renew now” to unlock exclusive stories. As if the story of a politician stealing isn’t free on every street corner from CBD to Westlands. They want us to pay a premium to read about how we’re being screwed in high definition. It’s the ultimate Kenyan irony: you have to buy a subscription just to confirm that the money you don’t have is being stolen by the people you voted for. Even the news has become a roadside tyrant, demanding a toll before you can see the wreckage ahead.

Look at Makueni. A “vocal” MCA is appearing before a joint committee because of a mango scandal. We all know the script. There will be tea, there will be “point of orders,” and eventually, the whole thing will be buried deeper than the seeds of the fruit they’re fighting over. Meanwhile, hundreds of farmers are counting losses. In this country, “investigations gathering pace” is just code for “giving the culprits enough time to move the money to a fixed account.”

The editors have the nerve to sandwich this rot between “success stories” of 23-year-olds captivated by the allure of farming. It’s pure bait. They lure these kids into the dirt with dreams of avocado booms and mango profits, only for them to wake up and find their hard work has been collateral damage in a county assembly turf war. It’s a conveyor belt of heartbreak. Today’s “farmer of the year” is tomorrow’s “victim of a scandal” headline.

Then we have the ODM circus. Edwin Sifuna is out here crying about “illegal” removal and not being given a chance to defend himself. Welcome to the real Kenya, Edwin. In a land where party loyalty is as thin as a single-ply tissue, nobody is safe from the vultures. It doesn’t matter if you’re the Secretary-General or a mama mboga; when the powers that be decide your season is over, they’ll discard you faster than a rotten fruit at the Makueni processing plant.

If you’re trying to read this through an ad-blocker, they want you to disable it. They want every cent, every click, and every ounce of your sanity. It’s all part of the same national decay. Whether it’s a Prado-driving tyrant splashing mud on pedestrians or a politician splashing public funds on a legal defense, the result is the same. We’re just paying for the front-row seats to a house that’s been on fire since 1963.