Rona's lessons

If you have been paying attention, then you must surely have a clue who signs my paycheques. This is an important disclaimer for the amount of dissembling I am about to engage in.

My involvement with Rona begun on the 25th March. I had instructions to "assist" a team at an undisclosed location to work through various legal scenarios. Ordinarily, such instructions are in writing, and identify contact persons and focal points - a person in charge. My instructions also usually involve some sort of end-game, a document or documents that one can point to and say, "Maundu offered the following services and I am satisfied, dissatisfied, pissed the fck off, whatever." This time round, my instructions were vague, nothing beyond, "Pack a bag. Go to this place. Help out."

I wasn't unduly worried. Even with minimal instructions, once I know whom I am working for, it isn't that difficult to figure out what they need, whether their needs can be met, how they can be met and what success (or failure) looks like. I packed a bag. Had a spot of lunch. Took myself to the slaughter. Because, Jesus Christ on a Stick, even now I can't tell you what I was supposed to do, whom I as supposed to do it for, and what it was all supposed to achieve.

I am not a difficult man at the worst of times. I am almost always patient and accommodating - I once assisted another group prepare a draft document by taking them in painstaking detail through every possible scenario. On that occasion, I was on my feet for close to nine hours. In the end we had a document that they were happy with and I was happy I'd done some real lawyering for once. This past month has not been rewarding. Quite frankly, it has, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, been the worst of times. Not only were my instructions vague, they were never clarified even after repeated attempts to clarify them with various pot-bellied and self-important powers-that-be. I held out for three days. The day the nighttime curfew took effect, I took myself out of the whole thing. I told the man who seemed in charge that I had to go home for a change of underwear and never went back.

What I do isn't complicated or complex. It's a specialized skill for sure, but any decent student can learn it. It takes practice and patience to be competent at it and so long as one keeps an open mind, remembers the basics, knows which questions to ask, and has a general awareness of the current legislative environment, legislative drafting is not akin to sending a human to the lunar surface. I have had occasion to work with difficult clients. The types whose technical reach far exceeds their intellectual grasp but are too arrogant to admit their obvious limitations. (Just this month I entered into a shouting match with one who hilariously read me his resume and invoked the "Do you know who I am?" threat.) But almost always, they will see the wisdom of heeding my professional advice and work with me to solve their problems. (Even this latest shout-y one eventually bowed to my wisdom and now he is a happy camper.)

The people I was working with had absolutely no capacity to think beyond their narrow and white-knuckle-grip beliefs. They knew what they knew and regardless of whatever the situation demanded and whatever statutory tools were available, they had set their minds to a specific outcome and they would not be held back.  It was like dealing with the members of a religious cult - the followers of David Koresh or Jim Jones. So long as their leader had set them on a particular course of action, they would follow, no matter if the course led to absurd outcomes. It was frustrating dealing with adults, supposedly with minds of their own, who would set upon a lark simply because that is what Dear Leader apparently wanted. One can only attempt to advise such a group for so long. On the third day, I threw in the towel. And switched off my mobile. And then hell broke loose.

Every single bad idea that they had tried to get me to rubber-stamp came back to haunt them. Every bad instinct that I had tried to walk them back from, they merrily indulged in. Of course things turned to shit. Of course they tried to lay the blame on me. Of course they failed. The experience has left a bitter aftertaste. It has exposed something that I have been willing to overlook for the longest time. There are those who know their place in the world and who, when they try to escape their shackles, do so with wisdom and skill. Then there are those who are still in high school, where might made right and bullying got shit done. They are the ones who will lead us to hell and damnation. They are the ones who seem to be doing everything at once. Flitting from one crisis to the next. Wearing the tag of "super-manager" with ill-disguised self-satisfaction. Overbearing. Overweening. Arrogant. Smug. I am done with them. If Rona doesn't put paid to their schemes, nothing ever will.

A man can dream

Last decade, just after I came home from university, I worked for an investigative agency. We weren't the police and we had no police powers. But we played our part to make things easier for those who came to us for help. There were many illuminating experiences in my time with the agency but none as revealing as the lengths to which the men and women we call "leaders" would go to evade the consequences of their unlawful acts, even if the consequences were, to our untrained eyes, minor and trifling.

I have heard told on social media that Kenya's parliamentarians have eschewed the call to put twenty per cent of their salaries in the Covid-19 response kitty because, if the Leader of the Majority Party in the Senate is to be believed, many parliamentarians take home a pittance after all the deductions made to their pay cheques have been made in account of massive loans and other commitments. He claimed that he took home less than ten thousand shillings. Rather than another deduction from his parliamentary salary he would make his contributions from his farm income. That he couldn't see the irony of claiming penury when he had more than one source of income escaped him completely.

When these men and women add the honorific "mheshimiwa" to their names, it is almost always certain that their lives and the lives they led before that august day will be as night and day. Their new lives and your ordinary lives will be as oil and water. Within a few months of election, they have access to privileges and benefits that the ordinary Kenyan can only dream of. But the greatest privilege of all is the ability, bar the rare occasion when all fails, to escape the consequences of unlawful acts. Their State offices act as a shield against most, if not all, inquiries. What amazes most people who pay keen attention to the parliamentarian's metamorphosis is the abrupt and total disconnect between the parliamentarian and the people he or she leads.

It is why, when Kenyans are facing the gathering storm of post-Covid-19 damage, a parliamentarian with more than one source of income will blithely declare, shamelessly and unafraid, that he cannot afford to pay anything into a fund established to cushion the very people he leads. It is why he is not ashamed to claim penury. It is why he will engage in a war of words with senior colleagues of his over matters that have nothing to do with offering succour and assistance to the suffering people he leads. None of his pronouncements - indeed, none of his colleagues' pronouncements - are designed to ameliorate the suffering of the people. They are, however, meant to signal that they are very much still interested in getting reelected. And hitching their wagons to this, that or the other principal.

If for nothing else, we can thank the pandemic for revealing that 99% of what the parliamentarian does in public, we can do without. And that the many millions we shall pay them over a term in Parliament can be pared down substantially without jeopardising service because they don't actually serve us but rather their own base desires. Covid-19 continues to reveal us to ourselves. Whether we learn any lessons from these revelations remains unknown and unknowable - though, a man could dream.

Tragedy foretold

I once joked that when the worst came to the worst with this pandemic, don't let the soldiers or the lawyers take charge of affairs. The recent tragic affair in Siaya only serves to reinforce my prejudices against the uniformed and disciplined forces and the members of the legal profession. These two groups are incapable of dealing with any crisis with empathy, care or kindness.

Let us begin with my learned friends. When we graduate from university with our LLBs, more often than not, we usually have acquired many bad habits that are usually reinforced by the Kenya School of Law when we undertake the Advocates Training Programme. Among the bad habits is the certainty that with respect to the interpretation and application of the law we are infallible - and everyone one else is either a dilettante or a moron. We will not brook perceived interference from any quarter. In the past two decades, but more so since the Narc government came into office, this attitude has pervaded every sector, reaching its apotheosis with the series of statutory instruments that have been passed to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Save for the two declaring the disease as a notifiable disease and infectious epidemic disease, the rest of them have reinforced the worst instincts of trigger-happy policemen and their superiors.

Policemen and soldiers have the same attitude as lawyers - that the orders they have been issued with are infallible and require no re-interpretation. Watafuata amri, no questions asked. Tragedy has followed such rigidity. Worse still, corruption has accompanied every excessively coercive enforcement of the curfew and restriction of movement. You know it. I know it.

Don't misunderstand me. There are many uniformed and disciplined officers, and lawyers, who are honourable, kind, empathetic and judicious in the exercise of their powers and performance of their duties. You encounter them every day in the course of their work. They are members of your families, communities and workplaces. Your interactions enrich your lives in immeasurable ways. But collectively, and in the context of the system within which they function, you find them and their work to be difficult to parse because of the real harm they cause as they go about their duties.

It is those systems that refuse to countenance a different way of enforcing the law beyond the coercive, and why burials are conducted in the dead of night under the unremitting eye of armed policemen. It is why I deprecate policemen, soldiers or lawyers to be in charge of anything.

A burial is a complex event. It isn't merely the interment of the deceased. It is both a statutory requirement and a cultural event. It is ceremony and ritual. It is faith and culture. It is religion and duty. It is the fusing of physical, metaphysical and spiritual. It is NOT a security activity. I don't know of any Kenyan community, even urban Kenyan communities, where burials are conducted in the dead of night. I don't know of any sensible civil servant who would order and supervise a burial in the dead of night, even if the remains of the deceased were the modern-day equivalent of Typhoid Mary. But a system of unquestioning infallibility and rule-following leads to such absurd and tragic outcomes.

Finally, the inevitable habit of ass-covering totally militates against lawyers, soldiers and policemen being charge. Lawyers, especially bad lawyers, are adept at using language to shift blame, quite often on the victims of their certainty. The uniformed ones shift it upwards to the ultimate authority who is often beyond the reach of the victims. No, dear friends, find someone else to lead. Find someone who feels as you feel and who decides in such a way that you heal. At the very least, even if your leader makes a difficult and harmful decision, let that lead empathise with you and lead you through the aftermath with care. The legal and soldierly classes are not it.

Bullying will cost lives

I don't like bullies. I especially don't like bullies who use the colour of authority to grind their heels into the backs of the little guy. Systems that are built on oppression don't know how to do anything that smacks of helping the weak or vulnerable. They only know how to coerce and punish. These systems are reflected in the rules they make and the manner in which those rules are enforced. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to remind us of these simple truths.

On the 25th March, we were told that a nationwide nighttime curfew would be imposed on the 27th in order to maximise nighttime social distancing as many Kenyans had defied the earlier social distancing guidelines by visiting en masse entertainment joints - pubs, clubs, places of worship and whatnot. The rationale behind the nighttime curfew was sound, in the circumstances. The manner in which it was imposed and enforced was incredibly not. It was imposed by bullies and it was enforced by bullies. The ostensible reason for the curfew - the protection of the civilian population from harm - was not reflected in how the curfew was imposed - through police violence and the killing of at least five Kenyans.

It is written in other places that Kenya has a low-trust environment when it comes to interactions between governmental institutions and the people. The police are distrusted by many adults, if not the majority of adults. Through their sheer ubiquitousness, the police, armed and otherwise, are everywhere, imposing their will on everyone, but especially the workingman. For better and for worse, the police are the face of the governmental response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The health minister and his cabinet counterparts can give all the press briefings they want, but at the end of the day, the physical embodiment of the government's response to the pandemic is the policeman on the street, bullying and intimidating Wanjiku in the name of her safety.

I am not an epidemiologist or a public health expert. I couldn't begin to design an effective response programme to the pandemic. I don't know how many doctors, nurses or other healthcare workers we need to respond effectively. I don't know how many infected people need to be quarantined and isolated in order to protect the majority. I don't know where to find the money to pay for hospital personnel and equipment, or personal protective gear. I don't know which taxes to waive and for how long in order to ensure that the pandemic doesn't totally crater the economy. I don't know how to ensure that more people buy into the governmental message of personal hygiene (hand-washing), social distancing and collective responsibility. There are many, many things that I cannot do to respond to the pandemic. There are, however, trained and experienced experts who know what to do, how to do it, when to do it and how to pay for it.

They know or have the technical and professional knowledge and experience to determine what it will cost to effectively respond to the pandemic. Some are in government. Many are not. In a low-trust environment, one built on decades of oppressive governmental actions, it beggars belief (or it should, anyway) that experts are largely there as window-dressing. To be seen, and if heard, only as an indulgence and not as critical voices guiding the nation in a truly horrific challenge. You can tell that people who are trained to deal with an epidemic are not leading the conversation when the principal tool for responding to it is police coercive and violent force. And rather than design a response plan that deploys the police to assist the public health authorities, the health minister urges the people to "avoid situations" that invite police violence. Bullying, as a strategy, will not lead to success. It will lead to resistance. It will lead to resentment. It will erode what little trust government enjoys. And it will cost lives as it fails over and over.

Change course or court disaster

When I was in Form 3, I suffered my first, of two, asthma attacks. All other asthma-related events had been mild, causing mere discomfort. This one was different. It had all the elements of malaria. So I obtained a permission slip from the school's nurse and took myself to Machakos District Hospital. Suffice to say that the next time I suffered an attack, I borrowed fare from my namesake and went to see the family doctor in Nairobi - quite against school policy. Seeking medical care at a public hospital in Kenya is quite often a desperate act. Facilities are inadequate. Health workers are demotivated. Medical supplies are in short supply. Hospital equipment is often broken down.

Since the devolution of healthcare to county governments, things have not improved never mind the much ballyhooed medical equipment leasing scheme that distributed state of the art medical equipment to all forty-seven counties. Doctors and nurses have been on several strikes, grinding essential services to a halt. Many patients have been seriously injured or died because of the strikes. It is not too much to wonder whether or not the health care system we have now has the capacity to effectively deal with the coronavirus pandemic. This uncertainty may explain the swift militarisation of the crisis, and placing the official government response in the hands of the securocracy. While the eloquent and affable Health Cabinet Secretary remains the face of the government, the situation on the ground is managed using national security tools - curfews and bans.

The post-devolution Cabinet Secretaries of Health have been disappointments. Leadership in the crucial sector demanded strategic foresight. What we got, instead, were business proposals designed to expropriate as much out of the national treasury in the shortest time possible, lethal consequences be damned. With the rapid global spread of the coronavirus, the thousands of deaths in its wake, and the destruction of economies, Kenya's healthcare infrastructure was not well prepared to deal with the pandemic. Senior government officials are deathly afraid that as it spreads in Kenya, and deaths occasioned by it rise, the coronavirus will lead to social unrest which will, in turn, lead to political instability that not only threatens the stability of government but also point a dagger right at the heart of the State. So they have fallen on the only tools they are familiar with: the coercive use of State power. This has had tragic consequences.

It is still not too late to fashion a coherent strategy to deal with the pandemic. First, obviously, is to classify the issue correctly. In my opinion, it should be dealt with as a health crisis in which case the public health authorities must be given the tools and resources necessary to deal with it. Secondly, its effects must be properly identified and correctly classified. Dr David Ndii has suggested what can be done on the economic front and no one has yet suggested that his proposals are unreasonable or impracticable. With regard to the upheavals the pandemic is likely to lead to, there are certain sectors that must be protected and supported - the supply of essential goods and services, for instance, and the reinforcement of the social assistance programmes currently being implemented.

This is not to say that the securocracy should put on mufti and slink on home. No. It still has a crucial role to play. There are those who will seek to take advantage of the situation to undermine government efforts, harm the people and generally cause damage. They must be identified and neutralised. But targeting children playing on balconies or assaulting delivery drivers because they have violated an ill-timed, ill-defined, ill-explained curfew is asinine and likely to lead to the social and political chaos that the curfew ostensibly sought to avoid in the first place. But the securocracy should not be in charge. It never should have been in the first place. It has neither the breadth of experience nor the intellectual flexibility to deal with the pandemic. It has a narrow focus on threats against the government of the day and limited tools to deal with that threat. Those tools are only tangentially related to public health. The window to arrest the public health crisis is closing fast. Armed responses are of no use.

Black Swans

In my not-so-humble opinion, all hopes by the Democratic Party to supplant Donald J Trump with one of their own old white men is inexplicable. Joe Biden is an old, quite often confused man with a dodgy record when it comes to race, gender equality or progressive politics. Bernie Sanders is all but a dyed-in-the-wool communist with ridiculous proposals about social welfare that the vast majority of  poor US citizens are uninformed about and not interested in. But, though these are good reasons, the real reason why Donald Trump will flatten them in the November presidential election is that he and his grifter family are willing to burn down the whole US system to keep power while the Dems are busily having an intramural fight about "superdelegates" and sticking thousands of knives in women's backs,  especially the women of colour within their ranks. All talk about "Bernie Bros" and "supporting the nominee" is proof that when push comes to shove, the Dems don't have a game plan and are biding their time until they create the next Barack Obama. What they will not admit is that Obama was a Black Swan - and those only come once in a generation.

Nani atachomwa na chai moto?

How many times have we seen this movie? Some calamity befalls some far-flung place. Everyone says that "If it happens here, we are not prepared to deal with it." Then it happens here. And it turns out that we are not prepared. We saw it with Mad Cow. We saw it with Bird Flu. We saw it with Ebola. We are seeing it with Corona Virus. Different script, same movie.

This virus has a frighteningly high mortality rate. It is the new Grim Reaper of viruses. You get it, you almost certainly will die. So why does it seem as if the Ministry of Health and the frightening machinery at its command seems unable or unwilling to step up and take charge? Because, and I can't believe that the script hasn't changed in a decade, there are tenderpreneur wars to wage. It's as if these people can't walk and chew Big-G at the same time.

Meanwhile, that model of overreach is doing its thing again. This time the unhappy targets of the Kenya Film Classification Board are the owners, operators and crews of the matatu sector. Few of us have any love lost for matatuists. Matatu crews are rude, crude, loud, violent and bring a new meaning to risk-taking. But despite all that, in Nairobi anyway, they transport millions of commuters to and from work in the most cost-effective and efficient, though mightily discomfiting and uncomfortable, way possible. So when they are accosted by the Boys in Blue in the name of "bringing sanity back to the matatu sector" on account of the allegedly lewd and lascivious offerings on the screens mounted in their PSVs, there is a smidgeon of sympathy for them. KFCB, and its Cristian zealot of a chief executive, continue to demonstrate the virtues of misdirection - a savage virus is barreling down on us, but it is more important for the State to be seen to be waging war on "immorality" in the PSV sector because that will keep everyone safe. This shit is no longer funny.

If that wasn't enough, it turns out that a former member of the Cabinet with a passing acquaintance with formal education managed to parlay the connections his former high office afforded him into a windfall worth several zeros. His escapade has managed to ensnare men and women holding high offices in sensitive sectors. The speed with which his benefactors and enablers have distanced themselves from him is impressive, but not as impressive as how loudly the story has been pushed - anything, it seems, to push corona virus Chinese emigrants from the front pages, it seems.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae? Blowing Bridges Initiative. Honestly, where does one begin with this demonseed? We had a whole year of BBI "public engagements". Then a massive party at Bomas where misimamo yalitangazwa. Honestly, in my naïveté, I thought that the Bomas party would be the end of it, akina Orengo, Jr, Wako and other Legal Eagles would be deputised to draft constitutional amendment bills and shit like that, and we would be presented by damp squib legislative proposals the would be laughed out of Bunge in the kawaida manner. Shows how foolish I have become over the past three years that BBI still has legs. Seeing how friends and allies are stabbing each other in the back, I can see us getting saddled with another Government of National Unity pretty soon. I'd laugh out loud if I wasn't cowering in my office avoiding my clients and their impossible demands. (Can you imagine one of them wants a three-hundred-page, two-hundred-and-seventy-paragraph draft in a week? Some kinds of idiocies are to be avoided for the sake of ones sanity.)

It is rumoured that when the National Rainbow Coalition ascended to the top of the greasy pole of Kenyan politics, a poll showed Kenyans to be the most optimistic people on Earth. The other day, someone on Twitter asked why Kenyans were so damn angry all the time. It is interesting that no one challenged the premise of her question. The reasons are not that hard to find. Almost all of them are tied to the antics of men and women who see nothing immoral with shilling for foreign "investors" while walala hoi are on the receiving end of all that is evil in this world. The question of when the pot will boil over is moot. The only unknown is whether the scalding fluids will affect all of us or just the vulnerable among us.

From potholed roads to dead citizens

Some time back on my twitter timeline I witnessed a tetchy exchange that led me to ask whether or not we understood the relationship between the government and the people it is meant to serve and I am afraid that few of us understand what that relationship is or what it is supposed to be like. Government is a many-limbed monster held together by laws, policies, politics, inter-personal relationships and coercive forces. As an entity, Government is impersonal and almost always destructive and self-destructive. As an agglomeration of humans, humans contained in ministries, departments, agencies, commissions, offices, boards, committees, task forces, working groups, entities, legislatures, services and all those other units that comprise "Government", Government is not a flick-the-switch easy-to-understand-or-control entity.

It is why when we insist that Government can be fixed by electing the "right people" that I fear we don't know what we want or what we are saying. Take my department, as an example. It is not particularly large - the whole entity barley has 1,000 officers. The senior-most officer is unelected but yield enormous power. The majority of officers are permanently employed and to dismiss any of them from service follows a processionals that is time-consuming and expensive. The majority of officers will never interact directly with the members of the public - we are not what is known as a "customer-facing" organisation. The ones that do interact with the public do so in incredibly intimate ways. The strange thing is that not even the senior-most officer has absolute say on the legislation that governs the functions of our department even though he has overall say over the policies the affect us. It is also important to remember that theses policies are not made in a vacuum - they are made in the context of larger Government policies, which have been made on technical, procedural and political grounds, with political grounds playing an outsized role.

We have tried piecemeal solutions in the past. They have almost always failed. From the appointment of the Ndegwa Commission in the 1970s to the Golden Handshake Era of the Dream Team of the late 1990s, piecemeal solutions have been the preferred way for dealing with the inexorable deterioration of public services in the light of the increasing role of political considerations in policy-making, law-making and the appointment of public officers. It should be fairly obvious that if we elect bad politicians, they will make poor political decisions. And if political decisions play an outsized role in public policy and legislation, then it follows that policies and laws will be inherently bad. However, the reverse isn't necessarily true in light of the sheer number of changes that have taken place over the past forty years: electing "good" politicians alone will not guarantee the decline in public services.

It is the for root-and-branch changes that are driven by the people. Top-down changes in which the political elite decide what we should get have failed. It is time for a bottom-up approach in which the people tell the political elite what they need and punish the political elite for failing to provide it. The key lies in taking over the existing political and social institutions by our sheer numbers. How we do so remains the hardest nut to crack because few of us have shown any true interest in doing anything about the state of our political or social institutions.

We are very vocal about our participation in elections and every now and then, we are very violent about our political colours. Whether we are incited to violence during elections is, in my opinion, irrelevant compared to our the style of our political engagement. In 2013, I was shocked to find out I was a registered member of The National Alliance party. I knew - or had a very good idea - how my identification details had been used to make me a member of a political party in neither supported nor wished to be associated with. Like many others, I couldn't even be bothered to write to the Registrar of Political Parties with instructions to strike my name off that party's register of members. This apathy pervades the whole country - there are few true believers, let alone committed card-carrying members of political parties anymore. And it shows. Political parties continue to nominate thieves, thugs, rapists, embezzlers and murderers, and may of these characters become waheshimiwa every five years - or whenever a by-election is held.

Before we can even begin root-and-branch reforms of public services, we must demonstrate our commitment to change by joining political parties that reflect our values and fight within those parties to make sure that those values are upheld. We must make the era of briefcase political parties a thing of the past. We must bring all our skills and knowledge to reforming the primary vehicles for determining political policies that affect us, sometimes in intimate ways. If we don't, we will elect Moses Kurias and Babu Owinos who will continue to have outsized roles in public policies and we will end up with dead citizens every time we protect potholed roads.

"I told you so" is not a good strategy

I spend a great deal of time on Twitter. Yesterday, there was a brief, revealing conversation about a fatal motorcycle accident. A boda boda rider and his passenger were in an accident that involved a Nissan Xtrail The boda boda rider was fatally injured - cut to four pieces, according to the person who witnessed the accident and wrote about it on Twitter. His passenger was seriously injured while the Xtrail suffered some damage. Someone retweeted the tweet about the accident with the seemingly jubilant "We thank Darwin."

Those of you who are familiar with the Darwin Awards, especially the ones awarded on Twitter, know for the most part that the videos that tend to be retweeted are usually humorous ones and presumed to be fatal - hence the "Darwin" in the Darwin awards. They are a humorous take on the theory of natural selection. In our case, the death of the boda boda rider is not a case of natural selection. It is not humorous in any way. It is deeply tragic. It is also very revealing.

There are a few Kenyans who have contributed significantly to discussing the ways we can improve urban mobility in Kenya, highlighting the benefits of non-motorised transport infrastructure and facilities and improved road designs with the aim of reducing reliance on motorised transport systems and improving the safety of road users. These are things that we should all care deeply about because they affect how we access and use the built environment that we rely on for our livelihoods.

Some of us are privileged enough to be able to plan our day down to the minute, knowing where we need to be and when, and having the capacity to organise our movements in the most efficient way possible using a mix of private vehicles and public service vehicles. Some of us are also privileged enough that we don't have to rely on motorcycle taxis. However, we are a minority among the multitudes that use a combination of private cars, PSVs and motorcycle taxi services to go about unpredictable, income-earning days. The privileged few tend to conduct their business with other similarly privileged people, and so the need for urgent flitting from appointment to appointment is not something that deeply impacts our day, hence the lesser need for motorcycle taxi services.

We tend to look down our noses at the ones that are habitually run off their feet and must therefore, rely on the risk-taking quick-as-a-flea fleet-footed motorcycle taxis that defy every known canon of road safety. On many occasions, our contempt for the users and givers of motorcycle taxi services is expressed with the smug "We thank Darwin" when injuries or death abound. In our eyes, Kenya is a wonderful country but for some of the people in it. It is why, every now and then, no lesser than high government officials make statements about the "indecency" of large swathes of the population merely because they are not in a position to lead supposedly overtly "civilised" lives but instead "paint the country in a poor light".

I cringe every time I drive in the city. It is one of the most stress-inducing activities one can engage in. The stress isn't just produced by the seemingly crazed drivers of PSVs or the reckless way in which motorcycle taxi riders navigate increasingly clogged streets but also by the way supposedly "civilised" private motorists and chauffeured government vehicles bully other road users without a twinge of remorse. It isn't just in the way that they drive, but where and how they park, defying the "civilised" conventions that they insist other motorists must abide by. In my opinion, the largest contributors to the chaos experienced on the roads are private motorists hell-bent on serving selfishly private motoring needs, the safety of all other be damned. For this reason, few, if any, contribute meaningfully to seeking or proposing solutions, smugly satisfied in declaring that they are law-abiding, and that everyone else is a scofflaw that deserves death or injury.

Motorcycle taxi riders are an entrenched part of the transport system in Kenya. Treating them like vermin - treating them with the same contempt that we treat mkokoteni pullers - is simple burying our heads in the sand about the true reasons why such risk-taking is so commonplace: the design of the road transport system is deeply flawed; its operation is highly fragmented; and few road users have a real incentive to play by the rules when it comes to road use. Pedestrians, motorists, PSV and boda boda passengers are all guilty. Acknowledging the legitimacy of the boda boda and the culpability of all road users is the first step to finding lasting solutions that enhance road safety for all. Smug I-told-you-sos are not a solution.

The past as prologue

From the moment the Supreme Court declared that Uhuru Kenyatta had been validly elected, the question of who would succeed him as Kenya's fifth president has been hanging fire. The Second Kenyatta Succession has inspired boycotts, violence, death, handshakes, tangatanga-ing, kueleweka-ing, inua-ing and embrace-ing. But the thing that has woven all these different impulses together has been the Building Bridges agreement between the president and the doyen of the opposition, the former prime minister. It has drawn a clear line for those who have chosen sides in the succession politics aimed at the 2022 general election: you are either pro-William Ruto or you are not. For only the second time in Kenyan politics, the question of whether or not the president will be succeeded by his deputy has become the organising principle for all political actors.

When Kihika Kimani and his Change the Constitution Movement took flight in the late 1970s, Daniel Moi was seen as weak and ineffectual, forgetting that he had survived in Kenyan politics by biding his time and picking his battles. He had not put a foot wrong from the moment Jaramogi Odinga over-estimated his sway with the electorate in the Little General Election of 1969. The Kieleweke and Tangatanga windbags, and the feminine versions of Team Embrace and Inua Dada, under the cover of the Building Bridges Initiative, have simply updated the Change the Constitution Movement with snappier made-for-TV messaging, social media strategies and vastly larger amounts of cash bribes to wavering politicians. The objective remains the same as it was forty years ago: prevent the president's deputy from succeeding him. The outcome, I think, will be the same: these people under-estimate the deputy president at every turn.

In the pursuit of political power, it is remarkable how little the constitutional structure matters in Kenya. The same political machinations have survived unchanged from the pre-2020 constitutional order. While Kenya attempted to turn back the clock to the 1963 - 1964 Majimbo Constitution, the only truly new thing in the whole arrangement was a Supreme Court that Kenya neither needed nor particularly wanted, and the unnecessary expansion of commissions and independent offices whose utility, as demonstrated by the thankfully short-lived Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution, is middling at best. The Ouko Auditor-General's office has published our fiscal scandals for all to see but so long as no one has been jailed over it, what good was he or his shiny new office?

Kenya's political ambitions have always been small and small-minded. The 1963 - 1964 ambitions were to position the president as a god-king, infallible and all-knowing. The 1964 - 1969 ambitions were to cut down to size any ambitious pretenders to the throne - or to cut them down, period. The 1969 - 1978 ambitions were to build a cult of personality that didn't invite pesky queries - and keep the country guessing as to whether this person or the other was best suited to adopt the mantle of President for Life. This cycle replayed itself between 1978 and 2002, and once again between 2002 and 2013, constitutional change notwithstanding. That the BBI smoke and mirrors is being sold as a wholly new thing is a testament to how narratives can be shaped on the collective amnesia of those who should know better.

The next two years will be spent almost entirely dealing with the politics of succession and hiding from the people the dire economic straits they are faced with. The fire and brimstone of "constitutional change" will keep nearly all of us occupied, trying to answer the question whether or not William Ruto will be Uhuru Kenyatta's political heir or a footnote of history, rather than dealing with the accelerating destruction of livelihoods, savings and grassroots wealth. The revolution you have been promised on Twitter by notable windbags like Miguna Miguna will not materialise. In the end, we shall come full circle and the cycle shall play itself out for the next ten years.

The myth of frictionlessness

On Friday, my colleagues and I departed Kisumu City for Nairobi at around noon. It is a beautiful city and recent infrastructural developments have made it a pleasant place to visit. We got to Kericho around 2:30 pm but were held up on account of a tragedy that befell one of our colleagues who was travelling in a separate vehicle. By the time we were clearing things up, it was well past 4 pm and we were passing Kikopey at around 5:30 pm. That is when our troubles truly began. When we first saw the long string of taillights we didn't think anything of it. We should have paid attention to the lack of oncoming headlights, though, because when we finally became part of the traffic jam we had no idea we would be in it for eight hours. Yes, eight hours! We got through the Gilgil weigh bridge well after 2 am in the morning. Everything that I have come to loath about driving in Nairobi was on stark display on that stretch of tarmac between Nakuru and Gilgil: selfishness, aggression, bullying, recklessness and that peculiar Kenyan trait: ujuaji.

It turns out that there was a Passing Out Parade earlier in the day from the National Youth Service campus in Gilgil and waheshimiwa had graced the occasion. At least that is the version of events we were fed by other hapless road users. When the event was over, there was a mad scramble to leave the venue by the invited dignitaries and the family members of the NYS graduands while battling the usual heavy traffic on the busy highway. It was a madhouse. By the time we arrived, things had been stuck for four hours with no sign of resolution in sight. We were lucky, in a manner of speaking: our driver is a hardcore Nairobi driver and he will steal every advantage in traffic to get ahead. Essentially, for our comfort, he encapsulated every hateful habit of a matatu driver that drives me up the wall.

It occurs to me that broken systems encourage the worst behaviour even in the most reasonable and levelheaded humans. No system is as broken as our transport system, a mishmash of national and county government policies, rules and regulations enforced by multiple public entities without coherence or cohesion. Road designers and builders concentrate almost exclusively on designing and building roads without seriously considering the plight of non-motorised transport or non-driving road users. Law enforcement agencies, both national and county, are not really interested in safety as much as in the venue they can collect from fines imposed on traffic offenders. Pedestrians and other non-motorised transport users will sally forth into oncoming traffic secure in the knowledge that motorists will give them priority - a truism that has proven to be illusory if the statistics of dead and injured pedestrians are anything to go by. In any case, how we transport people and goods in Kenya is characterised by chaos, delays, damage, injury and death.

Everything that could go wrong on that day did. Everything that we could do to make things worse, we did. And when it started raining, the situation worsened by a factor of ten. Traffic to Nakuru came to a complete standstill. Traffic to Gilgil weigh bridge inched forward - and I mean inched. Traffic joining the highway from Gilgil town was at a complete standstill - I'm not even sure when they were allowed t join the highway. We were overlapping - that Kenyan expression that means something other than what athletes think it does - three deep. The more ambitious among us were driving off-road and getting stuck in black-cotton-mud in the bargain. Tempers were short and it is a miracle no one got shot by an angry motorist. The losses in terms of time and money must have been enormous. Yet it is almost certain that no one is seriously engaging with these issues in order to make things better. James Macharia does not seem the type to seriously grapple with these kinds of issues if it means taking time away from his pie-in-the-sky procurement-driven schemes.

I eventually made it home at 5 am in the morning - more than fifteen hours after setting off from Kisumu to a house that was shrouded in darkness because I couldn't recharge my pre-paid electricity meter on account that before my departure, we hadn't had electricity for two days! My fridge had defrosted completely, food had gone bad, and the house smelled something awful. My app-based taxi guy tried to swindle me of the fare by pretending he hadn't activated the app when the journey began - the Uber-isation of taxicabs is a hit-or-miss affair in Kenya. The yelling was enough to bring the watchman to the barrier to find out who was murdering who. In Kenya, the only people who suffer little to no friction as they go about their best lives are people with money. The vast majority of Kenyans are not in that category and it shows.

The idiocy of fighting USA culture wars

How invested, friend, are you in the fate of the presidency of Donald John Trump? How vested, fellow Kenyan human, are you in the next open seat on the Supreme Court of the United States? How vested, child, are you that Hillary Clinton's e-mails are being mentioned with a certain measure of zealous certainty (what about them?! say the party of donkeys, and they are proof that she is evil incarnate! say the lumbering conservative-is Party of Lincoln). Have you keenly read the tea-leaves during the Adam Schiff Show (better known as the Hearings of the Permanent Select Committee of the House of Representatives) on the Ukraine Affair? In short, brethren and sisthren, how much passion have you channeled into the wheres and wherefores of the United States of America political drama of the year?

For sure there are lessons to be learnt; there are lessons to be learnt from all affairs of men, particularly men of power. In the United States political drama, there are many lessons to be drawn, from how to manage expectations to how to side-step political landmines that would fell lesser humans. But, and I cannot stress this enough, investing emotional capital in whether or not Donald Trump and his acolytes are building an anti-democratic personality cult is foolishness of the highest order - especially if you are not a citizen of the United States.

I have been witness to men and women of Kenyan descent - citizens one and all - inveigling against each other on account of the pro- or anti-conservative credentials of Mr Trump. Some describe themselves in terms that, if you didn't know they were Black Kenyans, you would surely swear they were dyed-in-the-wool WASPs - White Anglo-Saxon Protestants - down to their claims of following various European-vintage "schools" promoting this, that or the other "conservative" or "libertarian" ideology.

They are so invested in "solving" the Dem v GOP/ Red-state v Blue-state schism, they have almost completely abandoned any thought for the plight of Kenyans in Kenya. If you ask them where they were when Henry Rotich was playing fast-and-loose with the national chequebook, all you'll get are shrugged shoulders and mumbled dissembling of a most shameless kind. Th eUSA, as a political idea and entity, is very amusing. As is the Brexit United Kingdom, Yellow Shirt France, Ataturk-lite Turkey and I'm-sorry-I-wore-blackface Canada. We have serious challenges facing our people on account of the pro-Western Democracy or Face-East economics policies that have shattered social safety nets and savaged economic security for the majority of Kenyans and to waste precious intellectual energy fighting stupid USA culture wars is the height of idiocy. Like the sharp-tongued boss of Goldman Sachs would have put it: that idiocy should not occur here. We can learn from the USA people. We don't have to join their tribal conflicts.

Of importance is aliveness

The machinery of government runs on money. It is that simple and that complex. Money is never enough. Money is especially never enough when by Government's own estimates fully one-third is "diverted" to non-government-related purposes, profitable though those purposes often are. To address the paucity of money in the national treasury, some monies are "ring-fenced" - they are not to be expended for anything other than for that which they have been appropriated. In government, ring-fenced funds are those drawn directly from the Consolidated Fund - funds for the judiciary are just the most prominent at present.

In the judiciary, money greases the wheels of justice and I do not mean by way of bribes and whatnot. Money pays for courthouses and specialised courtrooms. Money pays for administrative support. Money pays for the movement of circuit court judges. Money pays for mobile courts. Money pays for digitisation and creation of electronic case management systems. Money pays for the operations of specialised tribunals - like the National Environment Tribunal that hears appeals against the decisions of NEMA that affect, for example, Uhuru Park if and when the elevated expressway is ever built. Heck, money pays for Wi-Fi! Without money, a substantial chunk of judicial work will not be done or if done, will not be done effectively.

I have nothing but sympathy for Chief Justice Maraga and his Judiciary. He is in an unenviable position. Ever since the members of his Supreme Court were called "wakora" and promised that its most consequential political decision would be "revisited", it was a matter of when, not if, he and his judicial officers would walk the gauntlet. The "when" is today. The reason advanced by the beancounters in the treasury is that austerity is going to be across the board. The perception is different. Few Kenyans believe the treasury when it says that it is not playing politics. Many Kenyans are convinced that the national executive has finally let loose the dogs of war and the judiciary is facing the music.

There are those in the national executive who have taken advantage of the parlous state of the national treasury to settle imagined scores with the Chief Justice. There is no justifiable reason for the chickenshit accusations levelled at the Chief Justice. What would ever possess the human responsible for government protocol to ignore the presence of the CJ at a state function? Which moron directed the Kenya Airports Authority to lock out the CJ from the VIP lounges at our airports? For fcks sake, why would anyone invite the man to State House, specify the date and time for the appointment, and on the appointed hour keep him sitting in the lobby like a supplicant waiting for favours from on high?

Now it is entirely possible that there is a cadre of serikali mandarins who think that judicial officers exist to smooth over the rough bits of tenderpreneurship, them being the bigger tenderpreneurs, including the placing of thumbs in the scales of just in favour of these human scuzzballs. To them it is unfathomable that a Chief Justice will not lift up the phone and direct a magistrate in Kapchorwa to allow a suit on favour of this [pro-government] side or the other. My ears are still ringing from all the screeching that occurred when the National Environment Tribunal ruled that the Environmental Impact Assessment granted to the builders of the new Mombasa - Nairobi railway was flawed when it permitted the railway to go through portions of the Nairobi National Park. Come to think of it - the crippling of the Tribunal was the first successful shot against the judiciary. But we must bear in mind, the serikali-friendly tenderpreneurs must bear n mind, that this situation is untenable. If they successfully emasculate the judiciary, it is not Chief Justice Maraga and his judicial officers who will suffer but everyone. When we lose what little faith we have in the administration of justice, we will take the law into our own hands. Violence, in this instance, is inevitable.

We need the decisional and financial independence of the judiciary to be safeguarded but we must also be realistic. We are in a bit of a fiscal pickle and if there are to be cuts, the cuts must be applicable against everyone - parliamentarians, members of the Cabinet, county governments, and not just the judiciary. If you are going to insist that Mr Chief Justice Maraga should ride in a puny 1200cc Jetta, so too must Mr Non-Carcinogenic Wheelbarrow and JB himself in Bunge. If Wajir Law Courts have to do without Wi-Fi, so too can the Minister of Congratulations. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Whether sanity will prevail...anyway, cha muhimu ni aliveness.

20/20 judicial vision

In 2012 two members of the Judicial Service Commission wrote an amazing piece in Kenya's tabloid of record on why members of the Judiciary deserved to weep driving Mercedes-Benz motor vehicles. Their constitutional and legal reasoning were sound - a testament to their keen legal minds. But the position they adopted on behalf of judges was tone-deaf. 2012 was the year that it became apparent that the privileges and benefits we extended to senior government officials had been abused for dogs' years and, therefore, in the spirit of pulling together to lower the cost go government, no one would be spared when it came to cost-cutting.

The Commissioners, in their wisdom, didn't believe that such measures should be applicable to their core constituents without, shall we say, "fine-tuning". In other words, hand the whole thing over to a committee and watch the zeal fade away like mist in the noontime sun. In any case, it soon emerged that the judiciary's stand on the question of "cheaper" vehicles for judges wasn't the most troubling - it had somehow managed to find a loose three hundred million shillings to pay for an "official" residence for the Chief Justice that has not been occupied by either Dr Mutunga, the Chief Justice then, not his successor, D.K. Maraga, today.

Which brings me to the "sweeping cuts" ordered by the acting Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Planning. For the past seven years, according to those who should know, Government has been on an unsustainable debt trajectory, loading up on expensive sort term commercial loans to pay off other short term commercial loans. Government mandarins claim, quite often without a scintilla of evidence, that the proceeds of the loans have been poured not "development" projects, though the existence of the projects is very much in doubt. Sure, there are a few show-pieces like the new Mombasa - Nairobi railway, new bits of tarmac along Ngong Road and Outer Ring Road, and new bits of concrete for the Lamb Port (part of the no-one-is-sure-it-still-exists LAPSSET Corridor Program).

What was apparent when Government sold the first Eurobond was that these cuts were inevitable. It was apparent when the Eurobond projects couldn't be publicly identified or verified. It was apparent when NYS I (and NYS II) couldn't be resolved without plunging the ruling coalition not disarray. It was apparent when we apparently paid twice for election-related expenses - including electronic registration and verification equipment. It was apparent when, instead of facing the pernicious effects of the debt treadmill head-on, we were treated to a series of red herrings - from the unsustainability of the "public wage bill" to the unsustainability of 49 legislative chambers (hence the need to "punguza mizigo"). Every economics expert worth his salt agrees that the trillions we have poured in railways, urban roads, electricity generation and transmission, inland container depots and mobile medical facilities, were largely wasted. For example, Dr David Ndii has argued that had that money been invested in improving smallholder agricultural yields, the rise in national economic productivity would have been accompanied by an increase in wealth creation and employment.

It was therefore, inevitable that there would be sweeping cuts across the board in Government when the music finally stopped - the annual national revenue (which has been declining for years) is insufficient to pay down the loans or the interest payments on the loans. The Judiciary, for complicated political reasons, is an easy target. It will not be the only one. Other soft targets are the constitutional commissions, independent offices, non-commercial state corporations, semi-autonomous government agencies, and non-core regulatory authorities. Soon enough the cuts will spread to national and county governments, including cuts in the funds appropriated for Parliament and county assemblies. The pain is coming; the only question is when and how severe.

In 2012 the judiciary was riding high, insulated from the public opprobrium visited on Parliament and the national Executive. Some of its more excitable members made unfortunate statements from the Bench and in other public forums that painted the other arms of Government in a very harsh light. It enjoyed the support of foreign governments, and the door agencies affiliated with them. But it had enough old school serikali types for the praise, money and newfound independence to go to its collective head. Today it has no friends. Its foreign supporters back home are facing the same economic headwinds bedevilling Government; they will not be riding to the rescue any time soon. No matter how passionately the Chief Justice makes his case in the court of public opinion, the larder is bare and the judiciary will be the first victim of austerity. Had the judiciary bitten its tongue in those early years of the new constitutional dispensation, its fate may have been postponed a bit longer. Like the say in the USA, hindsight is 20/20.

We may not need new roads

There is a hierarchy to personal transport solutions. At the very top is the chauffeur-driven, outrider-escorted, route-secured head of state or government. At the very bottom is the pedestrian without access to a footpath of any kind. In between, though, there are combinations and permutations of travel to boggle the mind. Personal cars, taxicabs, rideshares, shared taxis (aka matatus), buses, trains, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians on footpaths. In Nairobi, commuting is dominated by pedestrians, motorcycle taxis, personal cars, matatus and buses - in that order, more or less. But, between Mlolongo (or the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) and James Gichuru Road (Mombasa Road - Uhuru Highway - Waiyaki Way) commuting is dominated by personal cars and matatus, with all three sections experiencing epic traffic jams during peak hours and, quite often, during off-peak hours.

The solution, we have been told for the past seven years, is an elevated road that funnels traffic from Mlolongo/JKIA speedily to the James Gichuru Road (JGR) intersection. Some urban planners who know a thing or two have decried the proposal as ill-conceived and have pointed out that Kenyan experience shows that the traffic jams will only be ameliorated for a short while. Others have pointed out that the value of properties along the elevated road will fall because of the noise, the heat-sink effect and the influx of street families underneath the elevated road at key points. Still others have pointed out the negative environmental impacts, especially the increase in air and noise pollution, that a doubling of motor able roads will have along the path of the proposed elevated highway. Even if portions of Uhuru Part/Central Park remain un-excised for road construction, the negative environmental impacts  on the Parks will be significant.

Nairobi, and Kenya, almost always adapts to its transportation challenges. The matatus were a response to the relative inefficiency (and geographical discrimination) of the bus system. Matatus were fast and nimble, and very competitive on fares. The Kenya Bus Service, in all its official iterations, has rule-bound, inflexible and terrible at pricing its fares efficiently. For about a decade or so, the golden era between 1985 and 1995, KBS and matatus co-existed peaceably enough to produce a transport system that catered for the needs of rapidly expanding urban population. Nobody cared about the time taken between JKIA and JGR because, and be honest, there were very few people who made the twenty-six kilometre trip every single day.

But something terrible happened when John Njoroge Michuki became the Minister for Transport. In fully liberalising the public transport system, Minister Michuki failed to account for a few key reasons why it had become so bad. First, rent-seeking became commonplace. KBS faced increasing competition from laxly policed or regulated matatus owned by City Councillors, Cabinet Minsters, policemen and other well-connected entrepreneurs. While it was required to meet the terms of its license with the City Council, matatu operators were not: minimum fleet requirements, minimum services, safety, fare pricing and city-wide service were, more or less, waived for matatus but not KBS. Coupled with an economy that had nosedived and rising cost of operations, KBS scaled back its services until it went belly up, bought out by Britain's Stagecoach before the whole thing collapsed. It briefly tried to fight on when it introduced the quickly-popular Shuttle service - matatu-sized minibuses that competed with matatus in terms of efficiency and pricing. But by then it was too late and General Motors East Africa repossessed its minibuses and KBS went out of business. It lives on in the name of KBS Management Services, a pale shadow of its former self.

Since the collapse of KBS and the infrastructure that had supported its operations (Central Bus Stations and the termini at Kawangware, Kangemi, Eastleigh, Umoja II, Dandora and Kariobangi), and the full liberalisation of public transportation, Nairobi has had a public transport system in name only. It is disparate operators plying their trade without a policy to cohere their efforts. The result is chaos - Thika Superhighway, Ngong Road Expansion, Kenya Railways commuter trains, rideshare service providers, on-again-off-again NYS bus services, and over two dozen matatu saccos that exist only to maximise profit at all costs for their members, not collaborate to build an effective, efficient and affordable system. The JKIA - JGR expressway is simply more of the chaos. It may address the needs of a subset of commuters but it will in all likelihood contribute to the chaos, not provide a sustainable solution to the problems.

For now, the only service providers who have the institutional knowledge necessary to move millions of Nairobi residents from home to work and back again are the much maligned matatu industry. If they are not properly incentivised to provide city-wide services at a minimum level of safety and ride quality, all the new road real estate will not resolve the public transport chaos we are currently experiencing. This means certainty in regulation - everyone plays by the same rules as to fleet size, safety, quality of service and city-wide service provision (the last is the deal-breaker). Matatus operators that only offer services on a handful should be wound up or folded into the operation s of those that offer more extensive services. It may turn out that we don't need new roads after all.

The last kick

Only severe masochistic tendencies will drive a human person to use "comfortable" in the same sentence with "matatu". Not even the Republic of Rongai's nganyas can be considered comfy. They may have plush interiors, but they are operated along the same mercantilist lines as the Imperial British East African Company did. Their principle objective, each and every one of them, is to separate as many residents of the diaspora from the contents of their wallets, purses and MPesa accounts in the most cut-throat way possible before they fade into obscurity, supplanted by newer and shinier up-and-comers. So it is no surprise that the system that gave rise to Ongata Rongai's nganyas has spawned the 27 kilometre JKIA - James Gichuru Road elevated monstrosity that, so far we can tell, will "encroach" on bits of Nairobi's Uhuru Park.

We are getting an elevated "highway" we don't need. We are getting an elevated toll-road we don't need. We are getting a multi-billion-shilling boondoggle of doubtful economic viability for no better reason other than that the mandarins in charge of transport policy no longer make policy - they simply help well-connected movers and shakers to shake the money tree and move their profits to off-shore tax havens. Or purchase newer and shinier gas-guzzlers. Or run for high public office.

We have known for at least twenty years that more road means more cars - not lesser congestion. We have the data to prove it too. Most data shows that Nairobi's residents are not car people. The majority either walk to work or take public transport. Few Nairobians drive to work - less than thirty per cent. A coherent public policy will prioritise non-motorised transport (bicycles and footpaths) and mass transit systems that combine light rail, buses, yes, matatus, taxicabs and nduthis. Private motorists should be compelled to pay for the privilege of occupying scarce public real estate - on-street parking in the CBD and other high-traffic areas should pinch.

But instead we are getting a road used only by airport users - how many Nairobians work at JKIA or need to get there in a hurry on a daily basis? It is therefore, unsurprising that a system that has eschewed the basic tenets of public policy-making will rope in boosters who think that things like Uhuru Park and Nairobi National Park have no economic value and, therefore, do not deserve governmental protection. 

The proposed elevated highway is proof that we are no longer thinking about the majority of the people. When it comes it housing, "leafy suburbs" have successfully resisted cost-effective high-rise buildings that can accommodate more people and preserve the natural environment at the same time. Without a proactive people-driven public policy on the built environment, in thirty years we shall be demolishing the elevated highway and paving over Muthaiga, Runda, Kitisuru and Spring Valley at the barrel of the metaphorical gun of an exploding population in need of accommodation and clean air. Lavington, Kilimani and Kileleshwa are the harbingers of the change that is coming. The elevated highway is the last kick of a corrupt dying horse. Sooner or later, a restive people will demand, and get, what they need if not what they deserve.

Dead letter constitutional principles

Some Kenyans believe that part of the solution lies with amending the Constitution. The proposed popular initiatives reinforce and seek to tap into this public sentiment. However, the economic woes cited are due to poor leadership, weak governance structures and helpless constitutional bodies. In fact, the Constitution is yet to be fully implemented (emphasis mine). - Mugambi Laibuta (Popular initiatives to amend Kenya’s constitution: A misdiagnosis of the problem?)

To my knowledge, no constitution is immune to criticisms of inadequacy. Even brand-new constitutions suffer from political demands that almost always lead to calls for amendment. Kenya's Independence Constitution was amended within one year of Uhuru. The US Bill of Rights is made up entirely of constitutional amendments which were adopted a mere two years after the effective date of the US constitution. Therefore, there is nothing unusual about the demands to amend the Constitution of Kenya a mere nine years since it was promulgated.

Public sentiment in Kenya on matters of public importance tends to be shaped by political activity, especially the activities of leading national politicians. It has been so since the establishment of the republic in 1964. At every critical political turn, national political voices have shaped how Kenyans thought, what they did about it and when they did. Over the past seventeen years, the public policy question du jour has been constitutional reform "that accommodates all stakeholders". And over the past five years, the constitutional lament has been that the "constitution has not been fully implemented". Combined, these two things have shaped and reshaped politics in Kenya since August 2010 in one form or another.

Punguza Mzigo, the Thirdway Alliance proposal for constitutional amendments by popular initiative, is the polar opposite of the received political wisdom of accommodating all stakeholders. It flies in the face of what all leading national politicians have been campaigning for ever since it became clear that Raila Odinga's chances of presidential glory are all but dashed forever. It refuses to acknowledge that while many individuals want a reduced tax burden, increased "development", better employment prospects and peaceful electoral contests, few of them really object to "mtu wetu" being a member of the executive, legislature or judiciary. It is why the only people who murmured disapprovingly about the appointment of Chief Administrative Secretaries were the ones who laboured under the un-Kenyan delusion that "Government must be lean" in order to save public funds and deliver effective public services. They are the ones who constantly remind us that the constitution has not been "fully implemented" as if full implementation is an end in and of itself.

There are many constitutional values and principles that are notable because of the short shrift they have received from the three arms of Government, none more valuable, in my opinion, than meeting the two-thirds gender principle. In the appointment of the Cabinet, the principle has been flouted. The same is true of the Supreme Court, the upper levels of the public service, the management of state corporations and constitutional commissions, and, of course, both Houses of Parliament. Various arguments have been advanced as to why it has not been possible to do so, none of which is persuasive. Punguza Mizigo offers a solution though it is a solution that comes at a heavy price, one which few Kenyans are willing to pay.

Full implementation, in my opinion, remains a mirage so long as the constitutional culture fails to hold people to account, especially leaders in the executive, parliament or the judiciary, when they fail to live up to their constitutional obligation as they try and balance competing political interests. For example, there is no reason why the Chief Justice of Kenya must be a man or why men must form the majority on the Supreme Court. There is no reason why the Cabinet should not be split 50/50 between men and women or why women PSs should only land "soft" departments. Parliament's persistent failure (refusal?) to push through the only constitutional amendment with broad support to raise the representation of women is an indictment of its particular insular retrogressive culture.

There are no easy solutions. Whatever we choose to do to bring all constitutional principles and values to fruition will require great sacrifice. But so long as we believe what the politicians tell us, that they alone have the answers, and that the answers require no pain, full implementation will not happen. Once we recognise this truth, perhaps we can hold all of them to account. Mr Justice Maraga and his Judicial Service Commission, Mr Speaker Muturi and his Parliamentary Service Commission, and H.E. President Kenyatta and his Government have in their hands the power to lead the political changes we need. Their political cowardice is the reason why the two-thirds gender principle is dead letter law today.

Ni uchawi ama nini?

Last month, in an inexplicable act of generosity, my employer decided that it would be a fine idea for me to carry on my official duties in Zanzibar. So, as is wont with these sorts of things, the procurement manager swung into action and secured a return air ticket for yours truly. It would be four days of "work" in one of the more desirable destinations in East Africa and I was prepared to enjoy every second of it. Outbound, I was flying a Dash-8 aircraft operated by Precision Air (which was owned lock, stock and barrel by Kenya Airways). Inbound, it was one of KQ's rather enjoyable Embraers.

Flying, I had forgotten, especially flying with KQ, requires the forbearance of a saint.

I am renown for arriving at the airport before time. Way, way before time. Three hours before. I am not missing my flight because of Nairobi's spectacularly bad traffic. So, kama kawaida, I checked in three hours early, checked in my sanduku, obtained my boarding pass and moseyed on to the departure lounge (Gate 14) and prepared to wait. By now I am so used to the security checks that I don't pay them any mind any more, even though they happen to be the stupidest procedures bar, maybe, the ones at Bagram Air Base. What I didn't know, and what the nice KQ person didn't tell me, was that Dash-8s are small and that there is always a chance your sanduku will not travel in the same flight as you.

Terminal 1-A used to be a wonderful place to wait for your flight when it was new. It is no longer new. It is no longer nice unless you are one of those "priority" passengers or have access to the Business Class or First Class lounges. Those of us who fly Cattle Class must contend with uncomfortable seats, harsh lighting, bad food, and a mysterious smell that seems to pervade the entire building. It is a strong, persistent and nausea-inducing smell. The kind of smell that lingers long after you've escaped the confines of the smelly place.

There was no drama with boarding, even though at one point one of those hi-vis-jacketed KQ people couldn't seem to understand why the plane wasn't parked where it should be and he took a perverse pleasure in yelling at whoever he was yelling at on the phone that "Kama ni kulipa ni wewe utalipa!" The flight was uneventful: bad food, turbulence, a smell, kama kawaida. Landing was no biggie. Customs? Smooth as snot. Baggage claim? Yeah, all of you who were sitting to the right of the plane, your bags are in Nairobi! Or Dar es Salaam. Or lost.

It took me an hour of bugging the bored-looking security guy to find out that you report your missing baggage to that other guy who will fill out a form, take down your accommodation details (if you can even remember them) and arrange for the bags to be delivered wherever you are. Yaani it is so kawaida for Precision/KQ to leave bags behind in Nairobi that the "baggage services" guy has developed a super-thick skin from all the unhappily loud travellers he has had to deal with over the years.

My hotel was marvellous (save for the food and the fact that on the third night, I shit you not, the restaurant caught fire when they were fiddling with the wiring - it happened to be the only night I went in for a meal. It was my last. But the suite was perfect. Large without being cavernous; small without being claustrophobic. And cable TV. Boy did I laugh at the very madnesses of the talking heads of Fox News. Hannity is particularly hilarious.

As in Nairobi, so too in Zanzibar. My flight back was scheduled for 9:00 am. So obviously I was at the airport at 6:00 am. Once more, security, baggage-check and check-in were smooth as greased lightning. 9 came and passed. Then 9:30. Then 10:00. No KQ. No explanation. At 10:30, with the lounge now packed full of sweating travellers, destined for all points of the globe, the KQ rep finally showed up with a bunch of vouchers - for snacks. Then, and only then, did he go into this long-ass soliloquy about a passenger who had been stricken on the KQ plane so that it to had to divert to Mombasa and that the passenger had kicked the bucket and that...he went on and on and nobody cared. I swear if it had been a rugby match and he was playing for the other side, someone would have kneed him in his jewels. The plane eventually arrived at 12:15 pm. Like a Forward Travellers Sacco matatu - without an apology or an explanation.

The worst was yet to come. We landed in Nairobi on time, more or less. We cleared immigration swiftly, more or less. Then we got to baggage claim and the bags were nowhere to be seen. For forty-five minutes we stood there like idiots watching as one mechanic after another entered the hidden places of the conveyor belt and hammered things into place while swearing at each other. Yeah, even the "priority" passengers na wengineo wenye mienendo kama hayo were forced to wait, and wait, and wait. The final humiliation was the single x-ray machine operated by the nice fellow from the Customs Department - for checked in bags, not hand luggage - where another queue of fuming humanity formed. When we finally burst out into the sunlight, it was trending towards 4:00 pm. When the day began, I was going to get  home at 11:00 am.

I don't know how KQ is still in business. It must be some kind of uchawi, I swear, because the shit it is doing these days to its customers defy reason or explanation.

Maybe

Eliud Kipchoge has built a legacy that is almost unassailable. He is truly the King of the Marathon, the greatest there has ever been. Kenyans are justifiably proud of him. We admire his discipline, focus, sacrifice and determination. Many of us pour ourselves into our goals with the same sense of purpose and destiny; many of us are hamstrung from the get-go, but we forge on because we have faith in ourselves, our abilities and the vision of our lives.

We can no longer say the same with a straight face about the men and women who sit atop the tower of power - ministers of government have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or their pants down, or both; ministers of religion have perfected the art of separating Kenyans from the contents of her wallets as well as the love and trust of their families; education administrators are guilty of failing in the basic principle of educating and are no longer in expanding the realms of knowledge because of their race to the bottomline of ever-fatter profits from their "customers". Our faith in a just and proper government has been shattered and now we stand alone to face the future with few positive prospects. And yet, as Mr Kipchoge demonstrates, we can still change the world.

Maybe we are not yet lost. Maybe we can still be inspired to do great things. Maybe we can still rebuild that which has been rendered asunder. Maybe we can seize the future that is rightfully ours. Maybe, just maybe, Mr Kipchoge is not the only one to show us what can be achieved despite the challenges that are strewn across our paths.

Moi's hashtag warriors

"MOI was a serious political adult; fully in charge of the national homestead he headed. He genuinely cared for National Unity, running a Govt largely representative of the face of Kenya. He fully protected our territorial borders. History will judge this man kindly. #MoiDay" - Linus Kaikai

I am part of the generation that came of age during the Nyayo Era. We mouthed the Nyayo Philosophy of "Peace, Love and Unity" and recited the "Loyalty Pledge" (whose words escape me today) with fervour. I quaffed down "Maziwa ya Nyayo" without a care in the world and I performed in the national celebrations of "10 Years of Nyayo Era" with thousands of the members of my age group. The one constant back then was Baba Moi - after all, Voice of Kenya dedicated fully two-thirds of its news broadcast to Baba Moi. He was everywhere, all the time. He was, indeed, a "serious political adult".

Mr Kaikai elides a few details, however, when he declares that "MOI...genuinely cared for National Unity, running a Govt largely representative of the face of Kenya". Take the manner in which Moi was "fully in charge". Along Kenyatta Avenue is Nyayo House and along Loita Street is Nyati House. Both are infamous for the number of Kenyans who passed through their basements, especially those that never saw the light of day. "Wagalla" and "Wajir Airstrip" are names of places that cemented Moi's reputation of being "fully in charge". "Land clashes" and "ethnic cleansing" gathered political currency because Moi was so determined to forge a Government that represented the "face of Kenya" at all costs.

Mr Kaikai, and many of the Kenyans singing Baba Moi's praises, confuse a lack of civil war in the 24 years of Moi's rule with peace. Murders of dissidents and rivals were a small price to pay for peace and stability. Corruption on an industrial scale - whose effects are felt 17 years after Moi left office - was a price worth paying for a Government that reflected the face of Kenya. Territorial integrity guaranteed a crumbling public education and public health systems whose coffins, the Jubilation is nailing the final nails into. Baba Moi's shadow looms long over our collective national fate - the outlook is bleak.

Moi's Government represented the face of Kenya only if the face of Kenya was one characterised by an avarice that was almost comical. To be fair, when Moi said that he was going to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, he did exactly that when it came to land. But this grab-as-much-as-you-can philosophy came at a high cost: millions of landless Kenyans have passed on their hardships down to the third generation with very few escaping the poverty trap Moi's land policies built for their parents and grandparents.

When history writes Moi's obituary, it will only be kind to him if it only states, "He ruled Kenya for twenty-four years" and left it at that. The truth, while "complicated", is not that difficult to recall. The Nyayo Philosophy of "Peace, Love and Unity" was not so much about national unity but about self-preservation at all costs. The footsteps that Moi was following were laid by Kenya's first, and only, president for life. The philosophy called for a massive security apparatus to control what the people said, what they read, what they wrote and what they thought, and when that failed, it exacted punishments that ranged from low-degree harassment to more permanent solutions for which proof has always proven elusive. Linus Kaikai's #MoiDay call to arms is a reminder that though many Kenyans paid a high price for the Nyayo Philosophy, a small cohort became fat off of it.

I just hope

Before my current bailiwick, I worked for an amazing committee. I was green. I was...obvious. But it was an amazing experience. I got to travel. All over Kenya.  The only places we never visited during my time with them were the troubled bits of Turkana, West Pokot and Wajir.

My first trip was to Kisumu - KisumCity.  My per diem was a pittance - 2,500 only. Because I was an unpaid intern at the time. But Josie and Kate were the kindest they could ever have been - they picked my tab. I still don’t know why. Of course, Makoloo sorted everyone else out on meals and drinks. I have never worked with more generous people since.

We went everywhere. We met so many interesting people. It’s hard to imagine now that that committee laid the foundation for my current post. They taught me so much, especially about duty and service. They taught me to be less me, and more...you. I miss them dearly.

I have traveled more since then. Australia. The USA. Rwanda. South Africa. Tanzania. Zanzibar. But all my foreign travels pale in significance to the trips we took to Lamu, Isebania/Sirare, Meru, Kwale, Kitui...all those towns, villages...places that are what they made me. I’d give an arm to relive those years. But life is lived going forward. I can’t wait. I just hope.

Give the SGR a pass?

I haven’t been on the SGR yet. Given the, shall we be generous?, flip-flopping of the Kenya Railways Corporation about food and drink “from outside”, I am not sure that I ever will...but let’s keep hope alive, shall we? I have been on trains before. And planes. And boats. And lots of cars. For long journeys. But I shall always remember my first ride on the Shatabdi Express (well, not really, but it was in India so...)

It was all of thirty-four hours, from Nee Delhi to Pune to Sangli and finally to Kolhapur, where Chattrapati Shivaji has a university named after him. Second Class Sleeper Car. At the height of summer. Eight bunks to the sleeper. Me and Johnson. Riding the rails as Black men in Hindu India.

We had a stash of chapatis that Elizabeth had made for us. Three litres of water each. We shouldn’t have bothered. We rode with this Army captain and his family...wife, son and two daughters. He’d spent time in Dar es Salaam in the eighties. Spoke passable English. Generous to fault the moment he heard we were from Kenya. They shared with us their rotis, aloo gobi, masala chai and the wisdom of the rails.

I remember pulling into Agra Station in the dead of night. An eerie silence in a busy train station. Rushing for the public loos and backing out equally as quickly because of the remarkable stench. I remember cut chai sold in clay kulhas by the tea vendors on the train. I remember the Hijras in their colourful saris demanding - yes, demanding - alms or they would embarrass you till your green to the gills. I remember the midnight ride through the eastern bits of Gujarat when the train slowed down because of the threat of militants attacking the train. And armed guards on the roof, keeping vigil.

The heat was oppressive at first. But Johnson and I had acclimatised to the oppressive heat of South Delhi. Soon enough, we had also acclimatised to the heat in those super-crowded sleeper cars. And the smell. Because it reeked! Of course, our three-litre rations of water - and the chapatis - were spent within the first twelve hours but the Bisleri vendors were always at hand and our rupees went the distance. But Captain Surinder and his family made sure we were well provisioned by the time the journey ended. I still can’t figure out how they packed so much food in such small-looking baggage. Their many kindnesses will stay with me till the day I die.

The last time I travelled properly was to Zanzibar. I hated the journey. I loved the place. I simply hated getting there. Kenya Airways and Precision Airlines made the trip a nightmare. Outbound, they lost my bag. Inbound, the flight was delayed for five hours. The inflight meal was shit. The seats didn’t recline. Legroom was a rumour. Turbulence for the one hour hop was incessant. And when did they stop offering those tiny Coke cans on flights? KQ’s cost-cutting has turned the Pride of Africa into a pale shadow of Air Bujumbura! While I loved Zanzibar, especially Ali my cabbie, I hated getting there. The journey had nothing on the beauty of my first Indian train ride that went on and on and on. If KQ is a reflection of how we treat travellers, and KR is bullying passengers over their pilau and Coca-Cola, maybe I’ll just give the SGR a pass.

When the bough breaks

If given the opportunity, would you throw your hat in the ring and put yourself forward for elective office in Kenya? Would you raise your hand if the chance arose for you to turn around an iconic brand like Uchumi Supermarket or Kenya Airways? If you saw it happening, would you confront your minister of faith when he became a bully, gaslit the congregation about it and threatened spiritual damnation for the naysayers among you?

It isn't easy leading. It isn't easy leading when the people have little faith in leadership of any kind. It is almost damnedly impossible to lead when people have no faith in the institutions that form their communities, whether political corporate, spiritual, academic or social. It takes a Herculean effort to stand in the breach when inspiration is hard to come by because of the cynicism that now pervades everywhere.

Twitter has gifted us the meme and there is something frightening about how easily it is to memify our leaders these days because of their vacuousness. Look at our political classes: they are the typification of memification. They are caricatures; men and women of doubtful repute. They are incorrigibly irredeemable. Seeing what they have become and witnessing what they have failed to achieve, few want to become them. At a personal level, many of us think of ourselves as honest and trustworthy. We don't always lie. We don't always steal. We don't always cheat. When we do, we have handy excuses for it,  it we think of ourselves as decent folk, simply trying to make a life for ourselves and our loved ones.

And because of our self-image, we almost always shun the spotlight regardless of the fame that it may bring. Few of us want the onerous duty of leading, making decisions, championing causes. Those of us who do, those of us who have the urge to serve, almost always do it with a clean heart - in the beginning anyway. But there are among us whose desire for positions of leadership has nothing to do with service but a desire for self-aggrandisement. Their motives are almost always self-serving. They are as plain as the nose on your face.

We have suffered these people for decades. They have lied, cheated and stolen. They have caused civil strife and suborned murder. And they have become very, very wealthy off of the sweat of our brows. They are unapologetic. They are nowadays, suave, urbane and polished. They have silky-smooth tongues. They are Mephistopheles to our Faust, and our bargain with them has led us to this sorry plane. Bank accounts where they are to be had are shrinking. Job prospects for the young, eager and unemployed, are mirages. Home-ownership is a burden that sometimes cripples entire families.

One day the bough will break and the cradle will fall. I shudder to imagine what will happen on that dark day. So should you.