Perfect example of how not to stop poisonous drinking

By HENRY MUNENE

Kenya’s response to disaster invariably reminds you of the Greek myth of Sisyphus.

After running afoul of the gods, Sisyphus was condemned to a life of forever rolling a huge stone up a steep hill, then letting it roll downhill, before stomping thunderously down the valley to push it up again, ad infinitum.

And so it was that on Tuesday, just when the news production rush hour was reaching its cutthroat peak, I received a call from an old friend. He claimed to have been calling from a public morgue, where he had just counted six bodies of revellers who had convulsed into lifelessness as he watched, thanks to a drinking binge gone murderous.

Tens of frantic calls later, the news started streaming in, and by the time of filing this, more than 80 lives had been lost, mainly in Central and Eastern Kenya. In typical Sisyphean fashion, we started rolling the stone uphill.

First, the conspiracy theorists inundated us with alarmist theories that we cannot even reproduce here. But thanks to Jack Fuller in News Value, we doubt such yarns, even violently, until there is smoking-gun evidence. Yes, for a journalist, if your mother says she loves you, you must wait to see the evidence.

Exit alarmist theories, enter our national hobby called passing the buck. Politicians, in comical superciliousness, blamed Nacada, the agency that is mandated to fight drugs.

Never mind that other than a few populist stunts, the agency has neither the muscle nor the network to police alcohol consumption. The police, whose love of bribes from alcohol profiteers is the stuff of callous legend, also took a bit of flak.

The Kenya Bureau of Standards also got some egg yolk for approving samples and failing to follow to ensure licensees do not later spike up their drinks to poisonous levels.

Why, I have even heard someone blame religious leaders, chiefs, ward reps, and even the Judiciary for these senseless deaths. For me, this should be a wake-up call to put in place a holistic, broad-brush approach to stop these drinks from hell. We must stop the chain of greed that sees profiteers selling untested lethal methanol to our mainly ‘frustrated and unhappy’ people.

Three weeks ago, we argued here that it was foolish to – in what reeks of colonial hangover – ban generally harmless traditional brews, as this left a vacuum that soulless profiteers capitalise to kill us.

That’s how we ended up with this horrifying scenario where a virile man walks into a dimly-lit hovel, armed with Sh20, to emerge half an hour later, bleary-eyed and squelchy with his own waste. And before we close down all breweries, some of which are innocent, we must make sure there is a foolproof mechanism for testing the quality of all drinks in the local market.

Thanks to the Kariobangi underworld, even the Irish and Scotch whisky the middle –class flaunts in fancy glasses has its generics manufactured in dinghy dens in Baba Dogo and Dandora slums. A few tots of these fakes and you relapse into a 12-hour, near-death coma.

So, without safety assurance, we are doing tango with the Grim Reaper. A few facts are in order. One, people will not stop drinking because of what happened this week. Two, the alcohol industry, if well managed, can create more jobs and boost our comatose economy. Three, unless we make it possible for there to be affordable liquor, blinding doses will never go away.

Consider that it is in Embu town – where these deaths were first reported – where a few years ago people were saying “we will continue drinking even after you switch off the lights”, not knowing they had gone blind.

We simply never learn!

Now, we must avoid the Sisyphean, knee-jerk approach of rounding up suspects, closing down breweries and waiting for public uproar to subside before reverting to ‘business as usual’. We must fix this matter once and for all.

The writer is Revise Editor at The Standard