JIJI NDOGO: Some play Jesus as others play soldier

Happy Easter, everyone. I know, it’s a week late, but still.

I spent most of the holiday weekend doing the same thing I do almost every day — not much. There was a case of a snatched phone that we couldn’t solve but did our dandiest best to try. I even chased down a suspicious-looking fella who only turned out to be running away because he saw me chasing him.

It reminded me of a time when I was in Nairobi. I was waiting for a bus when someone snatched my phone. I ran after the thief, shouting, “Mwizi! Mwizi!” People joined in and helped me chase the thief. I could hear them behind me shouting, “Ndiye huyo! Kamata yeye!”

A short distance down the street, someone’s foot tangled with mine. I regained my balance and continued chasing the thief. Then someone else’s foot did the same thing, and only then did I realise I was being deliberately tricked. I fell down and people started stomping on me.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “I’m the victim here.”

Only when I produced my police ID did they believe me. Turns out, the thief had accomplices who ran behind me, pointing and calling me the thief. Mistaken identity at its best.

When we weren’t chasing an unsolvable theft, my partner Sgt Sophia and I did what nearly every Kenyan does these days: We buried our noses in our phones and consumed mindless entertainment and bogus news.

One topical post had me laughing my brains out. It was a video of a re-enactment of “Way of the Cross”. This is the time Jesus carried the cross on his back from his condemnation before Pontius Pilate to his crucifixion on Golgotha. The Jesus in this video was a tall black man with long, shaggy dreadlocks. He was dressed in a white robe and leather sandals. The idea of a black Jesus always confounds me, but to each his own, I guess. Behind the man was a sizeable crowd doing a good job of recreating the sombre mood that would’ve accompanied the circumstances.

Here’s the part that had me cracking up like a fool. A guy comes out of nowhere and decides to ride on the cross being lagged by “Jesus”. Of course, Jesus doesn’t appreciate the added weight. He drops the cross, turns around and identifies the culprit. Without a moment of hesitation, Jesus chops the man down with a karate kick to the stomach. The man falls down as Jesus nonchalantly picks up his cross and continues with his journey.

It left me wondering, if Jesus could do that to someone who interfered with his cross, what had he done to those who had whipped him? Assuming that part was re-enacted too, that is. Oh, how I wish the video had started sooner than it did.

But while that impersonation lowered the bar of expectations, I got to another post about a lanky Kenyan guy who has been impersonating a KDF officer. Now, while the veracity of the news in question is in… well, question, and knowing well that everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the possibilities were nonetheless interesting.

Someone pretending to be a butcher and selling donkey meat is bad. Also bad is a samosa seller stuffing his samosas with cat meat. But for a person to play a military officer, own a gun and live in a barracks? That’s a completely different ballgame. That’s extrajudicial-killings bad. Unaccountable-deaths bad.