Politicians should take Uhuru's directive seriously

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses the nation during the Fourteenth [14th] Presidential address on the Covid-19 pandemic at State House, Nairobi. [COURTESY]

A day after President Uhuru Kenyatta extended the curfew and issued a raft of other measures aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19, politicians were caught on camera at a funeral in their numbers. The funeral in Western Kenya also had scores of mourners who were clearly outside Uhuru's definition of "immediate family of the deceased".

We understand that it is odd for a person who has lived in a community to be buried only by family members. This is of course alien to the African culture; it is something that will take time to be accepted. However, as has been pointed out many times, these are not ordinary times. To reduce the spread of Covid-19, we must be ready to, among other measures, compromise on our cultures and traditions until the threat dissipates.

That is why it is shocking that politicians can congregate at a funeral and some of them not even bother to wear face masks or to keep social distance. We have said it here before that in so far as Covid-19 is concerned, politicians have let Kenyans down, and terribly. The political meetings they have been holding almost on a daily basis, which have now been suspended by the President, have worsened the predicament. The Covid-19 positivity rate yesterday rose to 16 per cent. We are clearly back to the hole that we had almost pulled ourselves out of. But we must not continue digging.

Politicians must lead by example. If they will continue attending funerals and even openly disregarding containment measures, they will be sending the message that the president's orders are not worth obeying. The public therefore will continue downplaying the measures, and the coronavirus will get more emboldened.

If politicians and the public do not care about the president's orders, police should not disobey him. They must take action against anyone who ignores the Covid-19 containment measures.