When the crowd turns, even the microphone can’t save you.

By Marion Mbithe

Mwala MP  Vincent Musyoka, better known as Kawaya, walked into Machakos Teachers’ Training College on Friday to sell government policies.

He left with his ego in pieces after boda boda riders drowned him in boos.

The UDA top honcho had barely started defending the controversial Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), and claiming fuel prices had dropped when the heckling began. His insistence that “NHIF was not working” only fuelled the backlash, with riders shouting him down and accusing the government of empty talk.
Even a stab at humour — “Hata kama umenyemelewa na suti kombo, lazima uniskize” — failed to land, as the jeers rose to a thundering roar.

Smiling, Kawaya pushed on with his speech, but the crowd’s verdict was already in. It was his strategy to justify government action, rather than his message – or probably both – that floored him in broad daylight. Clearly, the youth had no time for him, a fact he did not realize until it was too late.

Seeing a degenerating assembly, Machakos Town MP Caleb Mule stepped in without invitation, urging respect for leaders, but the damage was done, and Kawaya would speak no more.

Later in a comment to The Anchor, Kawaya blamed “mobilized youths” for the hostile reception, insisting that NHIF’s failure was “pure truth.” He did not say who mobilized them.

He said “The rowdy section of youths were obviously mobilized. Clearly, there’s nothing worth making noise about to say “Nhif didn’t meet expectations. That’s the pure truth”.

But the truth for him was harder: in Machakos that day, much as fuel may be cheaper, the reception he got was certainly more expensive than fuel.

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