Kenyans, let's just embrace mediocrity, lawlessness and get on with life

Recently, a young man posted the ordeal he went through at a leading hospital on Facebook. Apparently his relative had died while a nurse who was supposed to attend to him was just browsing on her mobile phone, unconcerned.

The young man took a picture of the nurse and even posted it on social media while recounting the seven-hour journey through hell. As if that were not traumatising enough, he was to be called by the hospital superintendent who wanted to know why he was “harassing” their staff, before security came and deleted the pictures he had taken on his phone. Luckily, he had already put up some on Facebook.

Basically, he was being treated like the villain yet he was the victim. It was that good old ‘what are you going to do?’ attitude that those in positions of influence like to shove around, pushing their weight.

As expected, there was an outpouring of sympathy. Many advised him to take up the matter with the body in charge of medical professionals. However what I found most curious and rather disheartening was how quickly the advice to go to the police was shot down by many.

In fact, when he revealed that he had been summoned by the police many urged him to make sure he informs those close to him “just in case”. Who knows, may argued, if the big guys’ who had called him earlier knew a few cops and they might make him ‘disappear’.

It is the ultimate distrust of an institution that is supposed to protect civilians when the very same civilians feel their lives are threatened.

In other words, in Kenya we go to hospitals to die and a visit to a police station is considered very dangerous even for those aggrieved and in need of help from the law enforcers.

It is the kind of dysfunction that leaves many unanswered questions. Like how a self-confessed cannibal whose house was raided, bodies found under his bed and survivor who escaped with their life came out to corroborate his nefarious actions managed to somehow walk to freedom.

One may not be a legal expert, but when someone like that gets away with a slap on the wrist it is easy to see why the society descended on him. The corridors of justice, these people were simply saying, had failed them and they would therefore take the law into their own hands. Nature abhors a vacuum, they say.

I will not even get started on the mess we took to Rio. The brazen manner in which those behind the mess went about their affairs depicts a group of people who know, without a shadow of doubt that nothing will happen. True, there could be a few arrests here and there but in the fullness of time they know they will walk away, Fongo-style.

In a week or so Rio will be a distant memory stashed somewhere behind court injunctions, lengthy trials, name-calling and the usual “our people are being targeted rhetoric. Then we will be reminded not to allow government interference in a sporting body’s affairs.

It comes as no surprise when we learn that senior officers are still buying and operating fuel-guzzlers despite clear guidelines limiting their use. Again, that question will arise: what can you (ordinary Kenyan) possibly do?

In street lingo we say, Uta-do?

While the natural instinct is to panic at this lack of faith in institutions, and those in higher echelons of power should probably be worried, maybe there is another way of looking at things. A little lawlessness must not be a bad thing, after all.

If we embrace mediocrity, life will be much easier since we would not burden ourselves with unnecessary expectations. Kits would disappear and we would all understand. If anything we would pat ourselves on the back since we managed to salvage a fraction of the kits and even went ahead to win the highest number of medals in Africa against well-kitted outfits. With mediocrity, nothing can possibly go wrong whichever way one looks at issues.

We could look up to great democracies like the United States, whose structure of government we adopted six years ago and learn one or two things about how to optimise on lawlessness.

It was during the lawless era of the Wild Wild West, on the backs of slave trade and after almost annihilating the native populations (and bison) that the founding fathers of the U.S sat down and wrote their constitution, guaranteeing them freedom never imagined before or since.

Exploitation was given a good name, capitalism and the right to push one’s weight around called freedom. Now look how far they have come

Maybe, just maybe, if we embraced mediocrity- perhaps even put it on our coat of arms- and allowed lawlessness, officially, to thrive, we would be a super power within this century.