This blogger is not a police man or a member of the intelligence services. This blogger has not served a day in the defence forces nor in the border forces. This blogger wouldn't know what to do with a firearm if it fell into his lap. Nor hand grenades, military-grade explosives, bows or arrows, spears, or chemical or biological agents. This blogger is not acquainted with the martial arts of the Orient or those of the Occident, for that matter. So it is with great trepidation that this blogger considers the incessant calls by the forces of law and order for "heightened" vigilance by the likes of this blogger. Do these people know that Kenyans suck at vigilance, heightened or otherwise?
Most of that paragraph is not true. But it describes a substantial number of Kenyans. Few know what to look out for or who to report what they have seen when they see what they are supposed to see. In the IMF/World-Bank-sponsored hey days of the Structural Adjustment Programmes that led to drastic cuts in education budgets lies the shuttered and shattered programmes that should have made every Kenyan as observant and as hawk-eyed as an Israeli.
This is where we find ourselves. In the period since the education of our children shifted from a wholesome mix of books, argumentation and play to being entirely about books, society has had to contend with the aftermath of such a short-sighted plan. It is near-impossible to make even the members of the middle classes to care about the fate of their fellowman. It is not surprising that in the two decades since we turned academic success into a life or death situation, where a "good" certificate is a chance at success, and a "bad" one a road to penury, more and more "literate" Kenyans have found themselves committing ever greater crimes in an attempt to keep body and soul together. It is reported that class envy is fuelling the crime wave in Nairobi. That and the fact that more form-four leavers can't get jobs; they simply don't have the skills that the market demands.
When we map the crime spots mushrooming all over Kenya, whether it is the restive coast with its al Shabaab-sympathising youth, or Nairobi where every middle class family with a newish Japanese import lives in mortal fear for its safety, or the badlands of Nyakach where "tribal" animosities seem to be escalating, or Marsabit where pastoralist ommunities have been going at each other hammer and tongs for five years, the true face of the demographic bump that Kenya is supposed to enjoy will be seen. Crime, especially violent crime, is a predominantly young man's game. (There are few over-forty-five seniors car-jacking motorists.) And it is increasingly attractive to young men who have no prospects, whether economic or academic.
Asking Kenyans to be extra vigilant is attempting to stop the stampede after one has been trampled to death. Hypervigilance, especially in Kenya, will devolve to vigilantism and the wheel of fate will have come full-circle bring us to a new era of "necklaces" and "mob justice" last encounte4red just before the 1992 general elections. What is needed is a coherent strategy to get Kenyans into as many institutions of learning as possible, to equip them with the proper skills to compete in the job market, and to ensure that the job market treats them with fairness. the rest will be down to our natural competitive nature. Rather than Inspecter-General Kimaiyo and cabinet Secretary Lenku asking for my "co-operation" in the fight against terror, President Kenyatta, Cabinet Secretaries Rotich, Aden, Kaimenyi and Waigure best figure out how to keep more and more youth in institutions of learning or getting them paid a wage that doesn't disillusion them into car-jacking, armed-robbing, murdering sociopaths.
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