Soul revolution.

We revisit an old chestnut. I am not interested in as many services as sirkal can provide; but the ones it can provide, it should provide well and by "well" I mean to a standard that doesn't place Kenya at the same level of public service delivery with war-torn Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan. Big Ticket services, obviously, are those I have no chance of providing for myself: anything to do with foreign policy, diplomacy or national defence, we will leave in the competent hands of Amina Mohammed and, until she is fired, Raychelle Omamo. Whether they do a bang up job in their areas, we will leave the victims of "travel advisories" and terror attacks to testify to.

But there are those services that can only be provided at the right quality by the State: universal healthcare, universal basic education and public safety. We will not whinge at the swingeing 30% top rate of income tax; it is the price we pay for being citizens of a (semi-)civilised country where taxes support all sorts of public initiatives. Until these three are provided to an acceptable degree, the State has no business entering into the cement-making, hoteleering, milk-vending, gun-making, bookmaking, matatu businesses or any other business for that matter. But if it does engage in commerce, it can only be with the explicit goal of sending all its profits to support the hospitals, schools and police stations that are the principal concerns of all people in Kenya.

Sadly, real life is not that neat. In a nation that is still held hostage by the legacy of its colonial past and which has discovered new and imaginative ways to render itself asunder, it is not utopian political economics that will sort out our tax-collection v public expenditure challenges. Insidious infirmities that are near impossible to quantify have captured the imagination of all policy-makers to the extent that much of our national energy (and passions) are expended in attempting to correct these infirmities. If it was not for corruption or negative ethnicity, we wistfully tell ourselves, life would be so much better.

It is the explanation for the past eleven years: NARC and the Grand Coalition failed to greatly improve the lot of teachers and students, doctors and patients, or policemen and the non-criminal public because Mwai Kibaki's governments were determined to swindle as much money out of The Treasury as they could and every member of President Kibaki's Cabinets was determined to advance the interests of his "tribe" at the expense of the rest, even if it meant bringing down the whole house of cards.

Even with a new Constitution these infirmities continue to hobble advancement. So we will continue to pay swingeing taxes and we will continue to receive shit service because we are corrupt and tribalistic. The solutions have been proposed and some have shown limited success. What we need is a national lobotomy to surgically remove or chemically shut down that part of our collective national brain that advances only at the expense of someone else, that prioritises short cuts and lies over hard work and just desserts. What we need is a voice willing to tell us what we will not listen to. We need a new generation of Timothy Njoyas, Henry Okullus, David Gitaris, Alexander Muges and an incorruptible version of the Seven Bearded Sisters. We need a revolution to save the soul of the nation.