An outbreak of rotten humans in Kenya?

Were it not for the deep patriotism that runs through my blood, maybe I would have already disowned my country Kenya and sought citizenship elsewhere. Why would I stick to a country that grabs every opportunity to digress rather than progress?

As young people are all over the world securing slots in the Guinness Book of World Records for impressive deeds, some Kenyans are right here inventing not planes, not cures, but hi-tech ways of performing beastly acts.

Just the other day, there was a strong wave of pedophiles jamming social media choking us with their new revelations. As is the norm, we made noise and as soon as they were out of sight, they were out of our minds too. All of a sudden no one is following up on this issue and people seem to have got over it as it slowly sinks its roots into our society.

Some of us would rather wake up in the wee hours of the night to follow up on the upcoming US elections than spend a single minute steering our country the right way.

Last week, there was yet another revelation on how thieves and rapists get hold of their prey. They no longer have to come to you to satisfy their needs. Instead, we are now walking right into their traps unknowingly.

Apart from worrying about reckless drivers on our roads, we now have to worry too about ruthless gangs masquerading as drivers and touts on our roads. Last week's case could be one that has caught the attention of the media but I am pretty sure it did not start the other day. This is something that has been going on for some time, only we have been brushing it aside and treating it as normal.

No, it isn't normal to get mugged in a public vehicle in the full glare of the driver and the conductor. It isn't normal to be threatened using a syringe that contains God knows what as you are mugged. Again, it isn't normal to get drugged, sexually abused and left for the dead because you used public transport.

I was once in a matatu on my way to town along Mombasa Road when a lady signaled the conductor that she wanted to alight at a stage. We were just around five passengers, at least that's what I thought until I later realised we were only two. The rest were on a mission.

As she was trying to rise from her seat and head for the exit, one well-built man blocked the aisle and started 'struggling' to get to the exit too. The lady was standing behind him trying to get to the exit too and another man from behind stood very close behind the lady pretending to be reaching the exit too. I saw the man behind reaching for the lady's handbag and pulling out her mobile phone.

My loud mouth and I could not mind my own business and I found myself alerting the lady. Let's just say that by the time the driver was stopping the matatu - which he took his sweet time to do - both the lady and I had received slaps from here to Timbuktu.

My bald head did not do me any good since to them, it was more of a drum. Were it not for my powerful lungs and the traffic that was building ahead, we would have probably been talking of a different ending to this ordeal.

It's high time the Government (yes, I said the Government) did something about our safety on the roads. Not only against crashes, but rapists and thieves.