The Nairobi County Woman Representative Esther Passaris has tabled a path-breaking Bill that seeks to entrench political freedoms in our country by opening special spaces for picketing and protests. Those seeking to protest about bad roads in their neighbourhoods, for instance, will have no right to barricade the road and wave twigs. They would have to travel to designated protest zones within the green city in the sun.
The idea is simple, even though some disrespectful men are claiming that the Bill is too sophisticated to have been developed by beautiful Passaris.
Such odious thinking is sexist, firstly, because the same men did not raise their protests when it was first mooted, apparently by Deputy Prezzo Kithure Kindiki, aka Halftam.
The moniker emanates from his belated elevation to DP, after Rigathi Gachagua, aka Riggy G was ousted, meaning Kindiki has served for “half-term.”
Passaris’ idea, she says, is to ring-fence certain institutions like Parliament and the State House from the wrath of the citizens. Many folks think the Bill is dumb, not just because it lacks any mechanism for enforcement, but because it wouldn’t stand legal scrutiny.
I think it has merit; if it limits peaceful protesters, the Uber-chauffered types bearing phones and water bottles that Kimani Ichungw’ah, in his red-soled shoes, scoffed about, the Bill is silent on the goons that scuttled the peaceful protests.
This means that goons will have a free hand to operate wherever they will, and could even be deployed to augment policing efforts to secure the city, just as Passaris likes it.
