Njuri Ncheke

If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll know that our teachers lied about very many things. They told us that if you want to cross the road, you look right, left and then right again. And then when the road is clear you cross. If you followed that advice on any day, you will either be late for work, classes, and exams or even for the Masaku 7s.

And we won’t want you to miss a guilt free weekend of  crimes of passion, now would we?

Still on crossing the road, they lied to us that at zebra crossing you have the right of way. That you can actually cross the road and motorists will smile and wave at you as you slowly strut across the tarmac like a colossus. You and I know that paradiso drivers will not just let you live to tell the story.

The examples are numerous. They taught us in CRE that if a conductor gives you excess change you should return and you’ll find blessings. In GHC (now I hear it’s called social studies) they said that Nyanza is a province in Kenya. 

Really? 

Nyanza is a republic bwana. Our system is  monarchical. When Baba dies, Fidel will take over and then after that Fidel’s son and then like that like that. Sisi watu wengine wa Nyanza kazi yetu ni kuongozwa tu kama kondoo.That is why on saba saba we will drop all that is important and march across Narobi.

But the biggest lie they told us is that the Njuri Ncheke is the council of elders of the Ameru community. 

How now?

The Njuri Ncheke is the governing council of elders of the Rungu clan. I’ve always maintained that of all my friends, associates and groups that am part of, there’s none that fills me up with so much merry, ire, shock and trouble in equal measure like the Vultures Hockey Team. They are more than a just a team, more like a family.

In this team everybody is famous for something; T Matolo for his rungu, Allan the sex god, Baro yule wa kukula ugali ya fifty na skuma ya 5 bob, Maina Mwangi aka Mwizi Kamili, Juma Juma the slayer of virgins, Shakes the rasta among several others with such dark accolades. (Why food may not sometimes be man's best friend)

In a previous post I once wrote that this is the place where weird is normal and strange is familiar, where vice is honored and virtue scoffed upon, where good morals are spurned and wickedness celebrated.

But a society with so much individual brilliance requires a watchdog. A regulator. A world of super heroes whereas effective, brings about issues of ego and anarchy. A governing council of elders would settle arising disputes and inflict punishment upon those deserving and give medals to those who merited.

The Njuri Ncheke’s word is law. Ask the sex god. I can’t say what he did for legal considerations but a hastily convened Njuri Ncheke took five minutes to ban him from the team for life. Okay, it was just a weekend. But you get the picture.

The Njuri Ncheke is the most fair court I know. At the cost of one jug the court can find you irredeemably clean, never mind your crimes are as red as scarlet. It doesn’t matter if you were accused of the most notorious crime that would be ‘Kuallano bro”. This mostly involved taking a girl who a brother was deeply in love with. The crime is named after a regular sex offender in the Rungu Village. I need to add though that consensual sharing between brothers was not frowned upon, so long as consent verbally or in writing was given. 

                            "ubro ni kukula na wenzako".

From its headquarters in Dimples, a three man bench deliberated and passed judgment based on their mood that day, the level of inebriation and personal vendetta they had against the accused. Punishment ranged from fines of keg jugs, banishment from the tribe for crimes such as stealing from a brother. That was actually a crime against humanity and no amount of keg can make the judges change their minds. Not that the judges would refuse your keg offer in principle. They had to take it first to find the wisdom to admonish you.

The Njuri Ncheke meetings was clouded with a certain superfluousness and bombasticity that would make PLO Lumumba bow his head. The son of Keiyo, the head judge charged the dazed courtroom with his mastery of the queen’s language and his analogies that would move you into admiration. 

Not that admiration. Admiration for the spoken word.

The other admiration is punishable by death. 

Judge Pokot brought his experience in handling disputes from his years of experience meditating serious conflicts in Kapenguria. Conflicts involving guns and spears. Not that conflict involving women that the Njuri Ncheke decided on were not that important.

 As the third judge, I don’t know what I brought to the Njuri Ncheke, I think they just had me in case there was a tie among the judges.

The Njuri Ncheke however was not just business and no play. The council has an entertainment department that was ably run by Boka Jairus Makaburi and T Tolo Matolo. These two had impeccable skills and skits that they performed before the important not gulty or guilty verdicts. Makaburi Jairus is a great story teller. his legend precedes him. He is the kind of guy you call when you are bored and he will come from Umoja to come and ‘beat for you stories’. Provided of course you will refund his fare and cook him good tea and a big ugali. He knows everything. Everything. Just start any story, any, perhaps how you visited Pluto. He’ll interrupt you and start telling the story.

“Wacha….mimi nakushow nilifika Pluto buda.....waaa,tulikuwa  na mbuyu…..”

T Tolo Matolo is a known man around the Varaq blogosphere, so he needs no introduction and why he is important to the jury’s entertainment. The reigning secretary general of the Fathers Association of Kenyatta University is a crazy man. And since his first born son is soon old enough to know how to read, I won’t say why his daddy is known as the daddy around here.

But the person you need to be afraid of most is prosecutor Sumu. He is not called Sumu for no reason. Sumu adheres to the natural laws of you are guilty unless you can afford keg or unless your girlfriend is hot or both. Arguing against him is a futile excess and might actually increase you sentence for questioning the court’s superior intelligence.

The Njuri Ncheke being a serious organization also has flower girls. These are the people who decorate the sittings. They are to be seen and not heard unless it is to say ‘ongeza ingine’.

The ex officio members of the Njuri Ncheke include Wambugu and msee wetu. Wambugu's day time job is a bar waiter but at night he sits in the council of elders. He has no vote but he represents the bar owners association and thus must be treated well. He must be kept drunk and happy for a rainy day when he will have to pay for all the largesse of the Rungu Village.

 He actually owes the Njuri Ncheke big time.Theres a day the Njuri Ncheke finished deliberations at four AM and Wambugu couldn’t make it to work in time. A visibly agitated Msee Wetu wanted to fire Wambugu. Of course we couldn’t let that happen.

The head of the Rungu village is however the one eyed man. According to the judge from Keiyo, in the land of the blind, one eyed man is king. It’s not difficult to see why he is the utmost respected man in Rungu village. Just yesterday he married his tenth wife. He got her from Masaku over the weekend. That’s not relevant to this story. I just want you to understand why the one eyed man is an inspiration to his village. He’s the kind of man who you greet while bending with your head in front of his bigness.

I will finish this article with the closing statements of all Njuri Ncheke Meetings……..

Long Live the One Eyed Man……..Long Live Njuri Ncheke