Kenya's politicians are on heat for economic fertilization

Good people, we have a crisis that supersedes the rot in virtually every sphere of public life. You know, as a country, that you are going to the dogs when the animals of the wild operate with a greater sense of personal integrity.

Ask yourself: How many of our leaders today can pass for public models? How many leaders are ruled by integrity? Where is a country headed when a whole professor or school principal brazenly steals public resources in broad daylight?

Look, while the role of government is to protect and take care of the people, how do you explain the fact that the worst thieves in the nation are those paid by the government? What is the common mwananchi to do when the head of state complains about
cartels operating in the State House?

Man-eat-man society

In the circumstances, a primary school teacher extolling his or her pupils to work so as not to become a chicken thieves ends up with an egg on the face when professors, members of Parliament, cabinet ministers, and top lawyers engineers, and doctors are accused of theft. Leaders in the government, obviously representatives of the government, are doing the worst when children are watching. What kind of nation will those children form when they grow up?

Once upon a time, President Julius Nyerere, fighting for African Socialism, Ujamaa, hit at fast-growing capitalist Kenya by saying, "Kenyans are a man-eat-man society." It's long since Nyerere died. You wonder what he would say about Kenya today if he were resurrected.

However, Nyerere would also have to concede with some post-Nyerere death development in Tanzania whereby Tanzanians have acquired a fraction of the man-eat-man-society mindset. The reason President Magufuli is so worked after all is that Tanzania, beneath its polite demeanor, has been working flat out to catch up with the money mania epidemic that has virtually destroyed the Kenyan state.

Most of the Kenyans in power are on heat looking for any form of economic fertilization. They appear powerful not only in self-destruction but also in the destruction of the very integrity of this nation. They have turned politics into a boxing ring where they go for nothing else but technical knockouts. Anything goes, so long as they can retire back to their gated homes with briefcases stuffed with the sweat of Kenyans.

Not too long ago, and after decades of struggle, Kenya married a nubile bride in the form of a new Constitution. She has a beautiful chapter on integrity. But politicians kidnapped and took her to what they describe as August House, tied her down, and with a crude homemade knife, they dishonorably mutilate her genitals to serve their own purposes. At the heart of this FGM is what the retired Member for Othaya Mwai Kibaki used to call "Siasa za kumalizana."

But from the national to county governments, the politics of kumalizana is no longer about 'finishing' political opponents but positioning oneself to 'finish' all the food. Politics is now about eating and politicians have learned and perfected the art of lying and arm-twisting to get to a position of power so that they can eat. Churches have become battlefields for politicians where
they use political clubs to maim their opponents and remove them from the high table. So cutthroat is the game that not even the dead are spared.

Political vultures descend in large numbers and land at funeral functions. There is no more integrity in burial places and the dead cannot be buried honorably before political vultures must grab every opportunity to destroy their opponents. And yet these are mothers and fathers, the very symbols of integrity and everything that should be morally right telling lies and misbehaving in broad daylight! What are children to do when people expect to uphold honesty and perfection engage in criminal activity, steal with impunity and go as far as getting mentioned in rape and sex scandals? The immorality of parents in positions of leadership is devastating morally and traumatizing them psychologically. We should therefore not be surprised that the politics of the University of Nairobi has degraded into violence, bribery, and arson.

Political thugs and megalomaniacs buy voters with anything

In this country, the worst time for citizens is the period surrounding a general election. This is when political thugs and megalomaniacs buy voters with anything. They arm their agents with clubs, pangas, and arrows, drown them with chang'aa, and poison the minds of the youth with opium to kill in order to destroy political opponents. This culture is slowly radicalizing poor youth against authority and the government. These disgruntled youths can easily set the whole city of Nairobi on fire because, in any case, they have got nothing to lose. After all, the city is exclusively for the haves but not for the have-nots.

In order for us to know whether it is the government or the citizen who has been trying to maliza the other, how come Kenyans have never seen any top government official getting charged and thrown into prison for engaging in crime or graft? Yes, there is not a single Kenyan prison with a big man serving sentence. Our prisons are packed with chicken thieves but not the powerful who steal billions and this country with impunity.

We are so engrossed in siasa za kumalizana that it has escaped our notice that we are destroying our nation.

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