The truth is that lies are self-defeating

Tourists photograph elephants at the Salt Lick hotel in Taita Taveta in November, 2013. PICTURE; MAARUFU MAHAMMED

Let’s cut to the chase, dear Kenyans. There are far too many riff-raffs speaking for the Government of Kenya, and it seems they are colluding with the same Government to lie to Kenyans.

As a law-abiding citizen, whom, I have been told by legal minds, does not exist, I am a firm believer in Government, just like the rest of you. There is nothing wrong with having faith in the Government because it is all-powerful, or is supposed to be, since it has all resources, thanks to the magnanimity of the people.

At best and at worst, the Government is ideally the parental authority every Kenyan has a right to turn to. It has the responsibility of not letting them down, or at least trying to create an atmosphere where they can thrive.

But when that same parental authority, either by default or through plain ignorance, employs a bunch of yobs to keep insulting the collective sensibilities and intelligence of Kenyans with blatant lies, then there are many things that are wrong.

For a moment, forget about the utterances of the past seven days because they are not making sense to many people. This is especially true for the victims, because they are dead in the real sense of the word, and are not aware the Government admitted that its lethargy caused their deaths.

In the past months, there have been spirited campaigns to lie about several situations, and specially the state of Kenya’s relations with other nations.

One oft-told lie is that Western nations are angry at Kenya for the latter’s much-touted looking East, read China, policy. One does not need to be a political strategist — euphemism for ‘hanger on’ — to know that this is utter nonsense because if anything, the West, and more specifically the United States, conducts more trade with China than with all African countries combined.

Simply put, the US and China are engaged in a symbiotic relationship. China buys more US government debt than any other country to ensure the US has access to cheap credit so it can buy more Chinese goods. China is the US’s biggest supplier and creditor, and the US is China’s largest debtor and market.

The other oft-peddled lie is that Western nations, specifically the US and Britain, get intelligence reports about terrorist attacks in Kenya but refuse to share them with the Government since, yawn, they want to sabotage Kenya’s economy for turning to China.

It is a fact that Kenya has more spies on the ground than the US and UK combined, thus any intelligence reports can only come from Kenya’s own security agencies. The only difference is that the US and UK analyse it and act on it to secure their interests, including their citizens — their taxpayers — whose lives they value, and that is why they issue travel advisories to protect them.

What is sovereignty all about when you cannot handle your own issues and want the people you are hosting to help you deal with decades of indolence?

Then there is the bit that Western nations need Kenya more, and Kenya turning to China is going to hurt them. More nonsense!

Consider this: If the state of California was a country, it would be the world’s eighth largest economy. While Kenya has been running around looking for some two billion dollars to shore up corruption cartels in the name of development, California’s 2014/2015 budget is 156.4 billion dollars!

Okay, for argument’s sake, the US needs Kenya more. So, why then would it want to sabotage the economy of its benefactor?

Did you hear about the Chinese tourists being shipped to Kenya in their hundreds of millions to fill the void left by Western tourists who were evacuated because of insecurity?

Awkward position

Get this: The Chinese are not fascinated by wild animals that are still alive, yet that is mainly what Kenya sells to (Western) tourists who get thrilled at the sight of giraffes prancing, gazelles jumping about and elephants marching majestically.

Chinese tourists visit countries where they can buy luxury goods, and in 2012, they spent $9 billion in the US — where the number of Chinese visitors increased from under 400,000 in 2007 to almost 1.5 million in 2012.

There are many lies that have been peddled, and it is not only immoral, but treasonous of the Government and its cronies to keep lying to a people who are feeling the effects of high costs of living and attendant poor standards.

These lies have put the Government in an awkward position, and clearly show that it has a penchant of putting all its limbs in its orifices, before struggling to communicate to the people the lies it has manufactured. It would be an understatement to write that the Government is a prisoner of its own fumbling and bumbling, and loves to blame foreigners and seek sympathy from the public, the very victims of its negligent ways.

Of course, Kenyans can sympathise, but the Government should cut down on the lies because ideally, it is lying to itself — and at the same time sympathy will not help it or the people because, as the poet wrote, sympathy is just but half justice.