Why the Government won’t win the war on illicit brews

Like every other thing the Jubilee government has tried to sort out after media exposes, the war against illicit brews won’t last more than a month before we are back to our normal day activities waiting for another trigger event. Forgive me for terming the current purge of illicit brews to be another round of high hot air octane, a charade and PR gimmick that won’t take us anywhere.

You see the Jubilee Government just like the others before it and others yet to come, react to issues rather than taking a sober look at the situation and coming up with an in-depth analysis and sound plan(s) on how to tackle the vice. 

The reason why the government cannot win the war on corruption, cattles rustling, alcoholism and terrorism began when left a bunch of headless adrenaline driven mob to decide on what is good and what is bad, who is the criminal, and who is not.  We turned the war on corruption, cattle rusting and terrorism to be political matters in order to achieve some parochial political sympathy from the masses without really tackling the underlying issues or decisively dealing with the culprits. now the same is repeating itself in the war against alcoholism. Where has that left us? We are  caught in the vicious cycle of each year chasing wind like a cat going round chasing its tail with the hope of one day catching it.

If there was a time the term clueless and fickle emotions were to be used, it is now. If there was a time the words cantankerous and Contemptuous would be used it was to be now. How do you allow such wanton destruction of property in the name of fighting illicit brews? Does it mean therefore that even the government has thrown the laws of the land into Chania river and resolved to go the Jungle way so that what remains at the banks is only Mary Wambui’s and Waititu’s purported ‘instant justice?’ How do you fight a crime by perpetrating crime?

It took the national cry of none other than his Excellency President Uhuru to announce that they have suspended licences for certain beer brands, therein lies the problem of what ails Kenya, I say fools carrying themselves.

Government agencies are created to promote corruption and hold useless strategic meetings where they get hefty allowances for saying and doing nothing. If corruption were part of our GDP, Kenya would be on top of the world. Like tribalism we have perfected the art. When recently it was suggested that commissions should be reduced or the number of commissioners, three of them featured prominently in my list: NACADA, NEMA and NCIC. Very useless bodies I tell you!

 A lot of young energetic men  have wasted away by imbibing the ‘kill me quick' from mama pima cannot be gainsaid. The vice is slowly but surely running into a full scale scourge licking up men and women alike. You need to go to former central province during school days and you will come face to face with the stark reality of the devastating effects of alcoholism: Schools have closed for lack of children. Not because of poverty, war strife but become men have become impotent or drowning in sewage tunnels after the binge, but is destroying EABL’s Sh3.4m worth of drinks the solution to the problem? Does setting a factory legitimately operating in Naivasha going to stop the Kiambu men from drinking themselves silly?

As we celebrate now, remember we are silently sending some youths who had been employed in genuine companies back to being jobless and into the gutters enroute to crime and back to the same problem we were out to solve.

 According to me, alcohol os not the problem. It is the very same office of the president which adamantly refused to let go the provincial administration that is perpetrating the rise and spread of the illicit brew factories and sale outlets. We have said more than once that the chiefs and the police are part of the deadly business. Last year the former Security CS Ole Lenku did the same work of pouring out the drinks as it is happening now, the same happened in 2013, hasn’t  someone figured out that to  fight the vice you have to cut the chain from somewhere; deal with the corrupt at the OP!

The fundamental bit missing in this central alcohol debate is saying it as it is ad leaving the rest for idealists

A wise man once said: a visionless leader will cause you to perish even if he is your brother. The dragon gobbling the central youth is the pure lies that they have been fed by their leaders over the years since independence that ‘we are rich; we have no problem for we are the chosen ones.’ Well, Houston or do we say Nyakinywa we have a problem in Kiambu.  

A few capitalist land grabbers from the 70's and their relatives who have many youths in central to the fantasy of community. The opposite is scary, Man youths from central have been made to live under the illusion of community wealth when in real sense they have a quarter of an acre to share among the 8 brothers while the capitalist owns the whole of Nairobi. The result? Watch evening news on our national TV stations.

Second if only Moses Kuria and his friends can get the courage like I see them do when it comes to talking CORD, I would tell them to face the devil in the eye and start tackling the underlying societal problems that drives their sons to the grave early. And to start with, Kikuyu fathers must start being real fathers to their children and stop pretending around.

There is no way a son raised by a single mother (not that single mothers are incapable) going to be able to face the world as real men without the guidance of father figures in their early childhood development.  You cannot go around siring children and letting them wonder like crocodile hatchlings.

The divorce, separation and single motherhood is high among the community members you only don’t realize. Today there are so many young girls and boys fidgeting around yet their fathers are just somewhere enjoying themselves. It is understandable that these young men are bitter with their fathers for deserting them; some just don’t know what to do after dropping out of school due to bad company and no father to guide them.

Every day in my line of duty, I encounter tales of children whose fathers simply woke up one morning and walked away, never to come back; yet the most bizarre is the recent case where a mother chased her form 4 daughter from the house on suspicion that the step father might have something canal with her behind the mother’s back!

What do you think would stop such a child from turning to alcohol or prostitution? Churches too must  get in the fight, it is time they stopped ministering to the women and mothers alone. Let them go out and look for the men and their sons to come to church too; I could not get any other better way  put it, for that is the truth!

So solving the alcohol menace in central will take more than just chasing after the brewers and shouting at the cameras on top of some upturn drums or crates of beer!