Quick fixes and a carefree attitude are our undoing

By Henry Munene

Kenyans have a pathological sense of humour.

Even the most serious problem will, in the fullness of time, be used as raw material for the most rib-tickling of wisecracks. A witness giving an account of a gruesome murder or accident is now likely to be turned into a folk hero, whose words and gestures many people mimic to spice up everyday speech.

Remember the Bonoko story, where a street boy was describing how a maize trader was murdered and a fake gun, bonoko, placed on him. The street boy is today a star radio presenter, after his account was converted into a popular tune.

Or the Kasarani eyewitness who was giving an account of how an accident occurred. We were left mimicking him and describing everything as “Ni kama ndrama ni kama vindeo”. There was also the Nyanza lady whose calls for the State to intervene every time there were floods in Nyando ended up as a favourite, comical ring tone.

Even negative ethnicity, the monster that saw us momentarily take leave of our senses in early 2008, has not been spared. Actually, ethnic accents and stereotypes form a crucial part of our burgeoning comedy industry. 

Why, even last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the presidential results, which reduced the country into a mass of nerves, and which featured terms such as Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) has spawned generics such as Amicus Kitandae (spouse or lover) or Amicus Goriae (friend of Gor Mahia).

Now, beneath this obsessive humour, one reads an unsettling tendency to give up on major issues in the country as they are unlikely to be addressed. So, whenever an injustice is committed, or people are blinded by concoctions brewed in backstreet Nairobi, you are more likely to see posts such as ‘accept and move on’, just as the opposition was told after last year’s General Election. This escapism can also be seen in modern myths. A while back, if someone reported a sad occurrence on social media, the reaction was that Makmende – a mythical superhero – would come and fix it.

Exit Makmende, enter the current quail madness. Jocular posts on Facebook have it that quail eggs are the panacea to all the problems facing the country. I was cracked to no end by one post by a colleague saying he had for years been caught in the Outer Ring Road traffic but since he started eating quail eggs, the heavy traffic has miraculous cleared.

And while laughter may be the best medicine, there is need to reverse the sense of hopelessness behind this humour and which threatens to reduce the country into one huge farce where, with no recourse in times of crisis, we are left laughing at ourselves.

The first step is to get serious in addressing disasters. Over the years, if road carnage, a fire outbreak, collapsed building, floods, illicit concoctions and other such tragedies claim lives, we have either formed a commission of inquiry, issued empty but stern warnings, transferred officers or done other things that have now begun to look comical as nothing ever comes out of them.

In worse scenarios, we have gone beyond comedy to commit full-blown blunders.

Take, for instance, the Mututho laws, which had the noble aim of reducing accidents and alcoholism. Instead of looking at the problem holistically, we have ended up escalating police corruption, killing the 24-hour economy, destroying jobs in the hospitality industry and sending drunk people scampering to their cars at 11am for fear that cops may find them at the bar.

It is also telling that even after we killed highway transport business through a ban on night travel, accidents are yet to disappear. This because travelling at night was not the problem, but part of a whole raft of factors that we were not serious enough to address.

Good, people, it is these quick and facile fixes that have left Kenyans wallowing in helpless mirth and hobbling from one crisis to the next.