First, we now have irrefutable proof that the Government of the African Republic of Kenya is composed chiefly of idiots, psychopaths, failed brains, megalomaniacs and the most hideous liars. 

Secondly, that said government is set, inexorably, on the path to self destruction. Which is shocking: everyone, however severe their intellectual limitations, is endowed with a strong sense of self preservation and even perpetuation. The government, so far as I can see, is the sum of parts, each of which is bereft of that vital sense. Let me calm down a bit and give this thing a little more coherence. 

1. Teachers are grossly underpaid.
2. Teachers do more work than the MPs.
3. Teachers impact more directly, more positively and on a larger spectrum of people than the MPs, PSs, MDs and other gourmands will ever manage. 
4. All the waheshimiwa, bar none, have at least a handful of teachers in their grassroots network.
5. Anyone who has ever campaigned knows that they will get nowhere without teachers' support, and that they will be totally doomed if the teachers take a dislike to them.
6. It would seem obvious to the stupidest government that the welfare of teachers is the mainstay of its goodwill. Not to this Grand thing, however.

When teachers threatened to strike late last year, the government - replete with former teachers on any given day - easily roped in unwashed characters like that Kanyamba fellow, under the aegis of the ridiculous KUPPET, and offered them goodies. Eventually, the most unbelievably pro-government, anti-teacher pay package was announced by Mzee Sam. Under this scheme, or, more appropriately, scam, a teacher currently earning Kshs 36,000 would, at the end of five years, be earning Kshs 102, 000. On the other hand, a teacher presently earning Kshs 6, 200, would, at the expiry of the same period, be earning Kshs 14, 000.

Perhaps if you calculate this in terms of scale factor and percentages, the sheer atrocity of this scam will not be as immediately obvious as my kienyeji truth. So let me spell it out inelegantly. Kanyamba, Esq, darling of the government will, by 2011, have an increment of over Kshs 66,000, while the jerry can-toting, Free Primary Education-implementing, harassed teacher in Ruthimitu Primary, including the headmaster, will have earned the generous increment of Kshs 7, 800. 

It gets worse. Mr Kanyamba negotiated as representative of KUPPET, which claimed to have a total membership of 11,000 teachers. This figure was clearly dubious, as the number of ostensible KUPPET members who have defied Kanyamba and joined real teachers in protest is embarrassingly large. The outcome of the negotiation was a truly suspicious document called an agreement, executed before a hack and lacking the rigour of satisfactory draftsmanship, emanating as it did from a city mercenary - also unwashed - rather than from the State Law Office. According to Ongeri, TSC and Kanyamba, the agreement binds all teachers in the African Republic of Kenya. Yes, I said that the agreement would bind all teachers, whether members of KUPPET or not. Now, good people, that is totally illegal for a number of reasons: 

1. There is no evidence that KUPPET had the authority of its members to negotiate the scam. 
2. There is no evidence that KUPPET had the authority of its members to agree to the terms of the scam. 
3. By law, even ours, privity of contract provides that only parties to a contract can be bound by its terms. That is to say, you and I cannot enter an agreement which exacts obligations on a third party who has no idea what we are on about, and does not want to be part of it anyway. 
4. The Minister of Education - I would like to call him Big Sam, but we all know he is Old Sam - is using the patently illegal agreement to browbeat teachers into accepting a settlement that is clearly against their best interests. 
5. Worse, the TSC and Ministry, in what amounts to conspiracy, have conferred on themselves tyrannical powers to withhold teachers' pay, fire striking teachers and enforce Kanyamba's agreement.
6. In the event those threats are carried out, they will be illegal, and the Attorney General should write an opinion in Ekegusii, Kiswahili and extremely basic English explaining that might is not always right, and that, in this particular instance, it is actually wrong. The problem is that the AG cannot give an opinion unsolicited, and being idiots, the people see no need to seek it.
7. If aggrieved teachers were to institute legal action against the government and TSC (forgive the tautology), the latter would lose and have to pay out colossal amounts in damages and legal costs. Who do you think will foot the bill? Thank you very much.

So. An agreement with KUPPET is not an agreement with KNUT. Because KUPPET is not KNUT. The government was swindled by Njeru Kanyamba into thinking there was a shortcut. There wasn't. That is why Kanyamba is mum about the present debacle. He knows that he obtained a deal by false pretences. They were conned in the simplest of ways. Meaning that the TSC and Old Sam can fall for any third rate scam.

The implication is that any person in authority who thinks that the teachers do not have a legitimate grievance, who thinks that the teachers' strike is illegal, who thinks that teachers are joking is spectacularly challenged. Any person in authority who not only thinks, but actually says that, needs urgent medical intervention. That, at the end of the day, is what leaves me beside myself with a rage. Anyone who serves in government whilst beset by such affliction and infirmity of mind ought to be relieved of their duties. The Hon Prof Sam K. Ongeri, despite his academic credentials and pretensions, is ultimately one such person. 

So I'm down with the teachers, and shall remain down with them, until the idiots come round, however long it takes. And so should you be too.

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