The day that never was.

Maybe the response was not bumbling, slowfooted or criminally mismanaged. Maybe it was the only response that the national security apparatus is capable of. Maybe this is the best it can do. If you recall, the initial police response to the Westgate attack was that it was a "normal" robbery. And if you recall, the official, yet-to-be-revised, response to the Mpeketoni attacks is that "the Opposition did it." Maybe the massacre of one hundred and forty seven Kenyans is neither here nor there - because it is Rogers Mbithi's fault.

I have tried to come to terms with my government and how it does what it does. I am still not sure whether I understand it, or whether anyone of us really understands it. When its ministers die in mysterious circumstances, we have national days of mourning but we also keep a tight lid on how they died, never mind what Commissions of Inquiry say or recommend.

Maybe we have been hoodwinked by the lions and lionesses of the Second Liberation to believe that instead of chicanery we shall have honour and instead of despair we shall have hope. I think we have been hoodwinked. I believe that we have bought a certain bridge in London and are still expecting to take delivery fifty five years since we put down our deposit.

Even when one of their own is shot dead by brigands and bandits, the people who make decisions about safety and security are not concerned enough to pretend to even do something that matters. They will still continue to target the newest targets of the national Executive, or some pet old targets from decades' past. They will continue to bandy about billions in the name of safety and security when they truly want to pocket all of it so that they can pay for a holiday in the Maldives with women who are not their wives or daughters. They will say many words that sound right - and promptly forget them when the teleprompters go dark.

The games they play - for indeed they are games - are games with huge costs and huge bills. Take this new game about walls. Hundreds of millions will be spent n feasibility studies. Billions will be sunk in the project, probably hundreds of billions. The wall will never be finished. The border will remain "porous". More Kenyans will be murdered by brigands and bandits. The evil cycle will be repeated.

Maybe we expected too much of them. In 2002, we had hope. Within three months they showed us how foolish we were for hoping that different hyenas would have different priorities. The boondoggles got larger. The scandals got grander. The murders became more brazen. Why anyone thought that 2013 would usher in the start of a new wave remains one of those peculiar mysteries Kenyans are famous for. It is time we admitted to ourselves that the day we have been aiting for is never coming. It never was.