We are a nation of laws.

Every time one of our fearless leaders or his minions warbles that, "We are a nation of laws," I have to resist the urge to giggle hysterically. Like a teenage schoolgirl. Quite frequently the personage engaging in pomposity has been embroiled in some legal difficulty and come out of it victorious, usually at the expense of some long-standing social convention and after the employment of hitherto unknown statutory loophole. That victory, as is often the case, is also at the expense of a Small Fish. But it does not take away from the fact that we are a nation of laws. Many, many laws.

This is the legacy of the British colonists in East Africa. In addition to borders and colonies, the Berlin Conference introduced in Africa the concept of written laws that were primarily used to lie, cheat and steal without being called lying, cheating or stealing. They bequeathed on an entire continent "legal tender" and made it the controlling factor of our very existence. The demonstrated how penal statutes and penal systems could become the cornerstone of government. There are many things that the British colonists taught us in Kenya and Uganda, but none has stuck more than hypocrisy and the superiority complex that infects the ruling classes the moment they acquire a bit of power.

Our hypocrisy is demonstrated rather starkly by the spectacular number of laws we have on the books. We criminalise everything. I was surprised to discover that even in the writing of academic curricula, for which we have enacted at least three statutes in the past forty years, there are laws that could lead to imprisonment for term of years. Years! For committing an offence in the writing of a curriculum! But this hypocrisy would not be notable if it were not for the pompous superiority with which the ruling classes wield the law.

The American War of Independence  and the French Revolution were fought, primarily, over taxes. Taxes imposed by kings, collected by the king, spent by the king, spent as the king saw fit. Taxes over which the people on whom the taxes were imposed had no say. Taxes based on laws made by the king without the people's consent. Taxes that could ruin livelihoods, families, reputations. Civilised societies (never mind their slave-holding, slave-trading foundations) that determined that the king was wrong. In America they fought a revolution. In France the nobility became intimately familiar with the guillotine.

So it is in Kenya. In our leaders' minds, the reason Kenyans are Kenyans is so that they can pay the ever-swingeing taxes our leaders come up with. Whether harebrained schemes our leaders come up with work out or not is not the point; they will impose taxes for the realisation of those schemes and those who complain are either in the pay of foreign agents or are unpatriotic sour-pusses with massive chips on their shoulders and political axes to grind. In the manner of the British colonists, our leaders insist that we must meekly obey the laws they enact; when we rebel even a little, the wrath of the system will be brought to bear sometimes with spectacular vehemence. (Think of the five years imprisonment on average chicken thieves and phone snatchers get handed against the "fines" billionaire tax-dodgers, tax-cheats and tender-swindlers pay.

The laws on our books are well-written. For the most part, their enforcement is pretty good. The discerning will discover, though, that the laws are meant to police the poor and the weak, the ones who are likely to have major differences with the way taxes are collected, spent and stolen. It is why the law books are thrown at them the moment they step even slightly out of line. It is why liars, cheats, pederasts, sex-pests, murderers, traitors and thieves will pompously declaim, "We are a nation of laws" without batting an eyelid or an ounce of shame.