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Heavy rains in Nairobi exposed our narrow-mindedness

It rained heavily on Sunday night and immediately it was a nightmare on traffic and drainage system in Nairobi. I guess if it rained continuously for three days with the same intensity across the country, you would immediately cry.  In think we are masters of reactionary behavior and work on crisis.

I don’t see the reason why we don’t view long term infrastructure solutions as an absolute necessity. If you look at some of the reasons why our economy has been constrained on growth there is a lot to do with poor infrastructure besides the poor policy pursuits and implementation at the national level more so in the past. 

On Monday after the heavy rains and after constant news on the clog on the roads and destruction, there was rumour that some midget mind of Al-Shabaab was planning to attack at traffic points. Credible or not I sought to observe our preparedness for such, as the message spread far and wide. What I observed need not be for publication. However, I think we need to seal all the areas where these merchants of death could find an opportunity. Nobody would have imagined that they could attack the colleges, buses and even malls.

Now back to the rains. I won’t be surprised to find some building sinking somewhere, some homes swept away by floods, some outbreak of water borne diseases and so much of these maladies happening.  I have visited virtually all the slums in Nairobi and some other towns like Mombasa, Kisumu and Nyeri. I have seen the deplorable conditions people in these sections of the urban areas are living in. Besides want, whenever it rains it’s by grace that many don’t get ill or perish. Moreover if you look at the interference power lines and the survival for the fittest attitude that spills into infrastructure, it is a sure case of easy destruction in case of flooding or such other phenomena.

I would like to laud the initiative by National Youth Service (NYS) initiative to clean up slums. I think it should be long term and sustainable. The poor urbanization and slum cities growth will continue so long as the poverty levels remain deep and keep growing. Meanwhile, could we please sort out the many drainage issues that afflict our urban centres?  At the same time I hope we won’t hear of food shortages   for whatever reason. I think drought prone counties have a duty to start mechanisms of tapping into rain water besides starting useful irrigation schemes.  It may not happen immediately but they should learn from the water wastage that happens all the time whenever it rains.

Our reactionary behaviour is very uninspiring. It smacks of hypocrisy and myopia. We need to re-engineer our thinking to take advantage of everything that comes freely like rain water whereas at the same time protect life and property from destruction.

 

 

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