LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABILITY VS 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

WHEN I GET THE BUS FARE

A SONG BY MRISHO MPOTO  

    

ANALYSIS BY       ROSE EMMANUEL TURUKA

KALAMAZOO CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL     OCTOBER     2011

This song is about a man in the village who desperately wants to visit his uncle in the city. He wants to remind his uncle what he is left behind, but he doesn’t have the bus fare.

The author Mrisho Mpoto shows rather irony and metaphor in singing this song. He starts off with “if I receive a bus fare I will come and visit you uncle” he continues by saying “it is better to build a bridge than a wall” literally we would say that Mwisho is longing to see his uncle, he has sort to put that into his first priority that he doesn’t have money to visit him but if he had he would;  instead Mwisho is still converting the message through  song to the President to whom he calls “uncle” advising him on the ways to control the government , because the government is not doing enough to help the people of  are indeed. 

Mwisho says “it is better to build a bridge than a wall” he is trying to make him understand that a wall separates individuals, the wall he builds between the people and himself call for no communication rather separation. It is an obstacle that blinds you from the reality from another side of the wall and fills you with the fantasy to believe that the other side which you don’t see there is no problems. So he says” it is better to build a bridge “for then people will be able to go from one point to another and will be able to communicate for you will be able to see sides, the reality and fantasy. He then goes on in saying “spring water is not forceful. If you want to drink it's  water you must bend down to it”. Here Mwisho is establishing the point that in order to get the water to drink you must follow the rules and everything that comes with it. You have to get close to the spring water. I believe Mwisho is trying to send the message that, for the President to lead this country effectively, he must not sit in his office waiting for the details to come to him, he should go out and search for the details himself, and not to wait until campaign time. It is true that when President is interacting with people in day to day activities President can see what people are needed truly; Mrisho caution leaders not to wait and appeal to citizens it, what can be changed and how it can be improved changes during voting time.

Mwisho uses the line” you just want the world to be like a village; congratulations”. As the irony of how poor the work of leaders have become the emphasis they give, doing the campaigns is not the work they produce after being in the office. Mwisho says” congratulations” as the irony that it is a poor job, thinking about globalization while village people are suffering for poverty and nothing has improved and the country is falling. Why you just want the world to be like a village, why you want  to focus on external policy while the country is poor, no improvement, no direction, no good leaders, because that is what is happening. There is no good leader to take care of the nation that we are deteriorating slowly.

In the second verse Mwisho asks” uncle do you know your team? Do you know who is loyal and who is not? Character is like skin of the body difficulty to change, remember that the child of snake is not being taught how to bite if you laugh with the monkey you will get the flu”. Mwisho is raising the awareness to the President on the people he takes advice from and operates with. He says the child of a snake is not taught to bite, the leaders who are corrupt not necessary will teach their children how to, they will grow up with it; perhaps they have grow up with it too. So if he stays and do nothing about and laugh with them instead, he will also be contaminated by their disease of corruption practices. And so it is better to take precautions before your get sick.

In this song Mwisho Mpoto establishes the ideas that president should take his responsibilities and matters and look at the issue closely, work so close with people in order to improve the country and people’s conditions. This song is so powerful, Mwisho sees social oppression and is trying to awaken citizen’s mind through the massage to his “Uncle”. I believe that many social movements and social transformation processes have always use music as a tool for social change.

ROSE EMMANUEL TURUKA