Forget the shows, here’s how to slay corruption dragon

What I find most interesting about Kenyan corruption scandals is there is never a confession or mention of a plea bargain to resolve the scandals.

This is interesting because without confessions and plea bargains there is rarely enough evidence to jail those who participated in crime.

In NYS 1 we had confessions of one Josphine Kabura and her three companies that were allegedly paid large sums yet her statements never led to any jail sentences. Similarly in NYS 2, a lady who owns malls and a reported 24 cars has said how she received nearly Sh60 million for supplying nothing to NYS.

Confession

This confession in my mind should have made her turn into a witness for the state for a reduced term in prison or to walk Scot free if she implicated a dozen senior officials.

The cascading effect would mean that many more arrests would happen because many more would want to take a deal and save themselves years of agony in trial and in jail.

This brings me to my second point: amnesty. The nation should institute amnesty to the corrupt on condition that they first return all the money they stole and they become state witness against those who helped them in the corruption schemes.

These two schemes would turn Kenyans into informants and whistle-blowers of self and of each other. In fact we should offer a ten percent reward to anyone who gives proper evidence of grand corruption. Because I am sure someone in Treasury has information on how Sh10 billion was stolen and a Sh1 billion payday would make him sing like a bird.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must make the corrupt turn on each other, by approaching their greed and their need for self preservation and turning it against them.

Planning to fail

Unless we take this approach we will fail for a number of reasons. First because we still consider the corrupt as heroes and tribal victims of jealous Opposition leaders, second we consider their tithe and offering an integral part of our worship, third we are as corrupt inwardly as they are for we worship the god of success and call him God and finally we are quite willing to teach corruption to the younger generation.

To prove my first point I hope everyone has noticed how the scandals are also based on tribes, NYS is for a certain community while the cereals scandal is for another. This is the norm we will very soon see.

Now consider the theft of public monies a Robin Hood affair, the PS’s and CS’s mentioned will be welcomed in their villages with dance and song for in our tribal minds stealing public resources is a kin to the tribal raids of the past where our heroes stole cattle and women from neighbouring tribes to our joy and glee.

In 2022, we will elect them to oversee the expansion of their empires because a good chief in our minds must also be a good thief.

We will also this Sunday and many Sundays after this, receive the tithe and offerings of the same people we have seen practice corruption on TV. As one preacher said: We will receive the money pray for it and thus make it “holy”.

These wonder prayers are now the new spiritual money laundering. So effective is this process that the corrupt are also our elders in church, they are the people who sit closest to the priest because their money has laundered their souls out of hell too.

In such a setting, and to my third point, the pious congregants sit jealous of the corrupt wishing they too would receive the “blessing” of the Lord and equally steal when their turn to eat comes. All so that they can stand and say ‘Look what the Lord has done, we stole and now we have cars and houses on earth as it is in heaven. His will is done, hallelujah!’

Buying exams

Finally we have now taken advantage of Fred Matiangi’s absence in the Ministry of Education to revive exam-buying cartels. Parents are busy doing secret fundraising in schools to buy exams for their children and this is the greatest fraud of all, you can’t out bribe stupid.

If you imagine your child cheating in the exam gives them a bright future then for sure the apple didn’t fall far from the tree because your brain lights are dim too. Passing an exam by cheating is the worst kind of fraud, it is fraud against yourself.

How are you going to score an A and forever explain why you can’t construct a proper sentence? I tell you the truth, Kenya needs to be baptised seven times in the Jordan or else our demons of corruption shall never leave us.

Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant. [email protected]