Sasa, nini hii?

There was a time when a presidential threat was thing to be feared, because it was so rare and always indirect and oblique. There is a generation of Kenyans who remain pitifully unaware of the Kenyatta I regime. More are familiar with the Moi regime, where cut-outs, marionettes and mouth-pieces were the vanguard of a system in which the President's word was holy writ and it took expert dissemblers and tea-leaf readers to discern the will, and the threats, of the President.

President Kenyatta, the Younger, has gotten into a habit of threatening people. No, no; I do not mean he is singling out individuals and telling them he'll whup their asses. No! Instead, he seems to make sweeping threats against unknown persons who have committed unspecified sins against the people and the government. In his brief, but excitable presidency, he's trained his guns on terrorists, carpetbaggers, corrupt civil servants, incompetent governors, rogue policemen, rogue judicial staff...the list is long. Indeed, this is the flip side to the President who is constantly promising to do something about one thing or the other without actually spelling out how it will be done, who will do it, when it will be done and how long it will take.

The presidency, never mind the high-minded promises of the civil society industry, is, and must be, strong. It must be seen to be strong. It should exercise its strength with determination and focus. It cannot be wasted on nonentities and humdrum matters. When a statement issues forth from the presidency, it must remain unquestioned by the riff-raff and the uninformed. It must call forth a counter-reaction from the forces out to ensure its brief spell in the State House. It must be precise when needed, and vague when necessary. If the presidency wishes to wipe out terrorists, it cannot do so tentatively or incompetently. When the presidency targets you, there must be no doubt that your days of liberty are numbered.

Since the Penal Code became part of the Law of Kenya, corruption has always been the target of officialdom. Decisions made by Kenyatta, the Elder, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki ensured that come hell or high water, the agents of corruption had bastions at the heart of the highest decision-making organs of the State. Since the Republic of Kenya was born, there have been corruption scandals that have exposed the Janus-faced approach to fighting corruption by officialdom. Iconic scandals dot the Republic's history; it seems the past is set to be repeated over and over. A sign that Kenyans no longer believe the anti-corruption rhetoric is the indifference with which they receive presidential t6hreats of action. Mwai Kibaki was the Great Big Hope. Under his watch, Anglo-Leasing and Triton will forever mar his words. Uhuru Kenyatta has promised action over and over again; the Nairobi Law Monthly and Alfred Keter claim that the Single Gauge Railway will be his Anglo-Leasing.

It is easier to speak of corruption in the abstract: "corruption will fight back;" "corruption networks;" and the like form now part of the anti-corruption lexicon. Formal anti-corruption campaigns were launched with the appointment of the John Harun Mwau-led Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority, followed by the Aaron Ringera-led Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission which was inherited by the eloquent PLO Lumumba. Now we have the late-to-the-party Mumo Matemu-led Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. The records of the authorities and commissions are there for all to judge. The voice of the voiceless, according to the civil society industry, is an indictment of the anti-corruption efforts of the State.

It is not enough for the Government of Kenya to appoint new Commissions and Commissioners, enact new laws and regulations, or for the Head of Government to threaten unknown people with unknown consequences for unknown offences in the name of fighting corruption. Until the people, in whose name the fight is being fought, have an absolute buy-in in the fight, the efforts of the government will be meaningless. In the here and now, with the people despondent and desperate for economic survival, and the Government of Kenya lurching from one crisis to another, that buy-in has as much chance of being manifested as chicken will manifest teeth.