The Man in the Mirror

Despite the billionaires amongst us (dollar billionaires, not the run-of-the-mill shilingi billionaire, let us be clear) we are a poor country. Nor resource poor as those benighted sheikhdoms with oil only; but poor in the sense that over half the country shits in the bushes or down a very deep hole. Poor in the sense that even pretty wealthy men and women see nothing off about their five-fingered-discounts habits, especially when it comes to monies placed in their care. It is for this reason that this blogger is surprised that it took this long for a Governor (and his female deputy) to get their asses in the firing line of their county assembly on accusations of having trousered several ten million shillings meant for "development," that catchall word that means many things to many people.

Ironically, the news broke on the same day that the President and Commander-in-Chief was lining up his Cabinet in front of State House (with many of us hoping for a firing squad scenario) and the beaming broadcasts of the media and declaring in his Big Boy Voice that the Standard Gauge Railway will be built, come hell or high water, or words to that effect. He warned (what is it with this President and his warnings?) those who thought they could reverse decisions that initiated in the long-forgotten administration of Mwai Kibaki to...this blogger is still not sure what he wants them to do. What is notable, however, is the fact that the Government of Kenya, which cannot seem to supply clean drinking water, or buy computers, or pay doctors or nurses or teachers, has gotten it into its head that it is a good idea to secure a Very Large Overdraft from the Chinese (whose people have been taking a keen commercial interest in our wildlife, among other natural resources) to pay for a railway for reasons yet to be explained. We have a railway. Yes, it is old. But why do we need a new one? Why can't we simply make the one we have more efficient? Why exactly do we need an SGR today?

Meanwhile, Kenyans are realising that perhaps, the Deputy President, before he was a Deputy President, was right about the wee matter of implementing the constitution. It is still not clear whether the brainiacs that conceived devolution could have known that the hyenas that had pitched camp in the Capital would relocate their centres of greed from the nation's political centre to its forgotten fringes. It should not come as a surprise that this is exactly what happened; after all, how many of the idealists who served on the Committee of Experts failed to parlay their "experience" into wallet-fattening government jobs later on? If these one could not resist keeping their fat fingers out of the National Treasury cookie jar, it would take an Act of God to keep the Governors, deputy Governors, "Chief Officers and sundry county hefties and worthies out of the county treasuries, would it not?

But the catch is that while the machinery of government is creating billionaires and making millionaires on a weekly basis, a majority of Kenyans don't have two shillings to rub together. They are the ones at whom we snigger on morning FM radio because their homes have been flooded the night before and they cannot trace their loved ones or their meagre belongings. They are the ones we condescendingly organise nation-wide campaigns to supply them with sanitary pads and tampons, because their mothers and fathers have not the wherewithal. They are the ones we slap hefty prison terms on for doing what their betters do with briefcases and lawyers.

Compromises have defined the fifty years of self-rule. When it became clear that the much-hated settler community had great clout in the great halls of Whitehall, we swallowed our pride and allowed them to call Kenya home. When it became clear that KANU was a dictatorship, we swallowed our anger and went along so that we could get along. When it became clear that our Treasury was being pilfered, we swallowed our pride and gave our bit in the name of cost-sharing. It is only a matter of time that we stare at the face in the mirror and admit that we do not give tow shits about the poor, the weak and the downtrodden and that our nation, our government has taught us to look out for number one: the man in the mirror.