Michael Mundia Kamau
P.O. Box 58972
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya
4th December 2004
A NATION IN DESPAIR
The second year of NARC’s rule in Kenya again comes to
a disappointing end, with little to suggest that the
coming three will be any better. Events over the past
year are indicative of ill-equiped governance far
removed from reality and the people’s plight. The
government of Kenya has once again failed to spur an
economic turnaround by skillfully mobilising the vast
resources at it’s disposal. The government of Kenya
has once again failed to contain runaway crime and
insecurity, by mobilising it’s vast resources in
instituting meaningful collaborations with communities
across the nation. The government of Kenya has once
again failed to address crippling levels of
unemployment, by mobilising it’s vast resources in
instituting meaningful collaborations and ventures
with communities across the nation. The government of
Kenya has once again failed to contain high level
corruption by apprehending the offenders through the
mobilisation of it’s vast resources. Of grave concern
in particular, are the continued and growing incidents
of government sanctioned crime and sleaze. The
governments of Kenya has once again failed to arrest
spiraling social decadence that daily continues to
manifest itself through pedophilia, rape, illegal
abortions, underage sex, illicit sex and substance
abuse of all and different natures. The government of
Kenya has once again failed to give hope and direction
to the people of Kenya.
The soul of this country is in a coma and the entire
Kenyan leadership, whether in the ruling government of
national unity or in the opposition, is tragically
doing nothing to remedy this ghastly and fatal
condition. Tales of Kenyan MPs being paid and being
airlifted to the Kenyan coast by powerful interest
groups, in return for their votes in passing crucial
Bills in parliament, are indicative of a nation that
has gone to the dogs. Scenes of government ministers
openly confronting and openly insulting each other,
are a sign that government functions have ground to a
complete halt.
The entire Kenyan leadership as we presently know it,
is clearly just a lull before a major storm. Unless
drastic action is taken to address and remedy the vast
problems afflicting this country and it’s people, a
vicious and violent uprising is not far off. No
attempt is being made to build goodwill at the
grassroots, and this is the reason why several nations
within one nation have evolved, up to and including
the powerful Public Transport Vehicle cartels. This
nation is so amorphous and so desperate, it’s
difficult to tell who is really in control.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people, not least the
trained and educated elite, are daily being
marginalised by a system that cannot cope with vast
changes that this country has undergone over the past
forty one years. There are next to no opportunities
left in Kenya anymore, and even worse, there are no
concrete steps in place to create them. If the
government has a plan, it has failed to communicate
it’s vision, goal, objective and mission to the
people, which is as bad as having no mission at all.
The president continues to emphasise hard work and
self reliance, yet the tax payer has been forced to
meet the cost of personal debts incurred by deceased
members of his cabinet over the past two years. If the
president wants to emphasise self reliance and reduce
reliance on the government and the extended family,
then there should be a massive nationwide drive to
promote and entrench life insurance policies, pension
schemes, provident funds, health insurance, education
insurance schemes, unit trusts and trust funds, inter
alia, as they constitute the extended family in the
money economy that we live in.
In general, two NARC budgets have made huge budgetary
allocations to all government ministries and
departments, but we are yet to see these massive
allocations and support translated into action. Where
have all these funds gone? It is further troubling to
read that government ministries returned back huge
sums of money to the Exchequer following the elapse of
the 2003/2004 government financial year, because the
funds had not been cleared for use as a result of
intricate bureaucratic red tape. If bureaucratic red
tape cannot be streamlined, how can the plight of 30
million Kenyans be addressed?
There is something terribly wrong in this country.
There is a devastating and looming crisis in our
midst, and direction out of this needs to be
established fast. Government and local authority
functions have crumbled to the detriment of an entire
nation. It is this sheer frustration that drove an
exasperated Njonjo Mue to confronting two government
ministers on the grounds of parliament on 30th
November 2004. Njonjo Mue’s bold and courageous act of
confrontation will one day rank alongside that of the
Boston Tea Party of 1773, the storming of the Bastille
in Paris on July 14th 1789, the beginning of the
modern civil rights movement in the United States on
December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up
her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery,
Alabama and the brave, bold and courageous manner in
which civil rights activist James Chaney met his death
at the hands of white captors in June 1964 by telling
them to their faces, “I aint running”. Njonjo Mue’s is
not the first bold and courageous act of defiance in
Kenya. On the day Jomo Kenyatta was released from
restriction on 14th August 1961, he was asked when he
wanted independence for Kenya, and he famously and
defiantly responded “Today!”. In 1975, former Butere
MP, Martin Shikuku declared in parliament that then
ruling party, KANU, “was dead”, and then Deputy
Speaker Jean Marie Seroney famously came to the
defence of Shikuku by declaring “there is no need to
substantiate the obvious!” In mitigation during the
trial for the part that he played in the abortive
Kenyan coup attempt of 1982, then University of
Nairobi student activist Rateng' Oginga Ogego,
declared that his biggest regret was that the coup did
not succeed. In early 1985 former University of
Nairobi students’ leader, Mwandawiro Mghanga, stunned
the nation when he inspected a guard of honour mounted
by University of Nairobi graduands of the then
National Youth Service training programme for
pre-University students of Kenyan public universities,
a role then reserved for only the Head of State.
Images of Mghanga being whisked away by Special Branch
officers then, are still etched in the memories of
many.
Njonjo Mue’s bold and courageous act of 30th November
2004 is nevertheless an enviable and inspiring wakeup
call to both the entire Kenyan leadership, and to the
ineffective and heavily compromised Kenyan middle
class in deep slumber, a heavily compromised 21st
century Kenyan middle class that makes 18th century
France’s Marie Antoinette and her callousness, appear
saintly. The Kenyan middle class on which the country
relies on for direction and intellect is decadent, and
hopelessly preoccupied with sex, pleasure, alcohol,
flashy cars and flashy cell phones. Fresh impetus and
direction needs to given to the Kenyan dream, struggle
and movement, and Njonjo Mue played a shining role in
this respect on the 30th November 2004. Sanity and
direction urgently require to be restored in this
country.
On Wednesday night, 24th November 2004, Fr. John
Hannon of the Society of African Missions, was
murdered at his parish house at Matasia, Ngong, 25
kilometres from the capital city Nairobi, after a
botched robbery attempt. Nothing whatsoever warranted
the brutal murder of Fr. Hannon. Were it not for
missionaries, this country would not have made the
strides that it has and this agony cleared showed on
the face of cabinet minister George Saitoti, the day
after the senseless killing. Whites and priests have
always had a respected status in Kenya. Fr. Hannon was
both a priest and a white, which means that nothing or
no one is sacred or respected in Kenya anymore. This
country is between a fiercely burning fire and hell,
and whichever way one looks at it, we are in serious
trouble. The least that this country can do, is fight
to get out of this ghastly predicament. Is NARC dead,
and is there no need to substantiate this?
Michael Mundia Kamau