Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Are you proud of Nairobbery?

Unless one came up in the projects, if one is a resident of the Big Apple one has great pride in the World's Capital. Many Nairobians will never visit the Big Apple and sample its delights such as Madison Square Garden, Broadway, Yankee Stadium, Liberty Island or the Bronx Zoo but we are infused with a sense of New York City from cultural imports from the Great Satan, as the most devastating Islamist of them all referred to it. From what we have seen and heard of New Yorkers, there is great pride in their city and its institutions. Even the recent controversy over the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy is informed by the desire to make NYC the best place to live, work and play for all, residents and visitors alike.

New York's mayors are famous the world over, though a few have been infamous. Many will remember Rudolph Giuliani as the 9/11 Mayor and Michael Bloomberg as the Billionaire's Mayor; the jury is still out on Bill de Blasio. Even New York's governors are famous. We may not remember him or know him, but Mario Cuomo was a household name in certain circles in Nairobi in the early 1990s. Now his son, Andrew, is the Governor, a position once held by Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States.

Nairobi City has had some famous mayors. Charles Rubia and Margaret Kenyatta come to mind. But after the appointment of the Nairobi City Commission by the Minister for Local Government some time in the late 'eighties, Nairobi morphed from the Green City in the Sun into Nairobbery, and its mayors and councillors played a pivotal role in this transformation epitomised by the collapse in municipal services and an explosion in corruption. When the Nairobi City Council was restored to office after the 1992 general elections, whatever civic pride Nairobians had in their city had been completely eroded. It is around this time that organisations like the Karen-Langata Residents' Association took steps to permanently sever ties with the City Fathers.

Nairobi City and it's county government are mirrors to the nation. The degree of despondency reflected in Nairobians' relationship with their county government is the same one that Kenyans experience in their relationship with their government. The calls for nationhood and patriotism by the president and his cabinet, and echoed by the high and mighty and the media, are all well and good. But until the government and the high and mighty give all Kenyans a reason to feel proud to be part of the nation, these calls will fall on increasingly annoyed deaf ears. In the here and now, it is the men and women who have captured the State who have a reason to smile; the vast majority cannot afford three squares a day, live in neighbourhoods in which crime is rife and municipal facilities are notable for their absence or decrepitude.

The State is more interested in making money off of the people than in helping the vast majority of the people make a decent living. Jogoo Road at night demonstrates this rather starkly: the street lights do not work, but the advertising signages have light. Nairobi City County would like us to spend money than see us get home in safety. And now all public walking spaces in the CBD are slowly being captured either my paranoid State institutions or by corporations and big businesses. The walking majority of Nairobians are an afterthought, if at all; it is the driving public who are seen as the only serious priority. It is for that reason that we may never speak with pride of Nairobi and why it is increasingly difficult to do so about Kenya. The Cabinet Secretary may sell the world on our traditional hospitable nature but one day, if she and her government are not careful, we won't care how we are portrayed in the media and we won't do anything to help. The only difference between the Nairobi City Commission and the Government of Kenya is scale.

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