How Much Ugali

Am telling you folks, Kenya will surprise and confound in the near future. Down with these ugali eaters, they think Kenya cannot go the way of Egypt and Tunisia? They will be very surprised when it happens. You see how quick they were at dispelling fears that Kenya may go that way in all the dailies, by claiming that we have too many divisions among ourselves, but they forget that our common things are more than the divisions. The same problems of unemployment, poor services, abuse of office by and dissatisfaction with "Big Ugali" eaters is universal across the nation, whether one is a kale, a kikuyu, a luo, a turkana, a merille, a gabra, a taita, a maasai, a dorobo, an indian, a muzungu, name it! When one goes to any public office to be served today, files still 'disappear' until one appeases the 'gods' of the place with a hefty bribe. Criminals reign supreme in most towns of the country today and many municipalities have totally neglected to serve their towns despite the numerous advances in technologies that allow for much cheaper services delivery.

For example, in Homa Bay town in December 2010, a cashier at a petrol station was gunned down and the assailants casually drove away in a car, gently going through the town from one end to another without any law enforcement officers chasing them. And there are more than 30 cops in Homa bay, all with guns and know how, with cars and fuel, and they were made aware of the incident and given descriptions of vehicle and occupants. No chases. No arrests to date. Last Saturday, a similar thing happened, but this time round at a certain man's home in the same town. They managed to rob the owner of a string of butcheries in the town of unknown amounts of money at gun point and managed to severely injure one of the people who had responded to their distress call. And in Migori town the next day, another butchery owner and his wife were gunned down by thugs who then stole their car and drove it away as if that is what is supposed to happen every other day. All this happens while we know we have people being paid by our tax money to ensure our safety and security and ensure us an organized living environment where things don't just happen. That is why one can support extra-judicial killing, ownership of guns by individuals and lynch mobs like sungu sungu and such like. Our ugali eaters who live in security afforded by our tax money had the guts to call for the sacking of hardworking cops who cleared away murderers, just because they did it in broad daylight, as if when the thugs do the same thing in broad daylight, they have a right to do so. We want to see people killed by firing squads and hanged by the hangman and electrocuted and given lethal injections for violent crimes. We want it televised on national TV. We want to see crime being fought openly and no policeman getting vilified for doing his job. We want to see CSI labs in place all over the nation even if these shall be manned by foreign national experts good at their job. We want to see security improved. We want to see an end to impunity everywhere. We want individual homes, and home-owners who may come under threat be allowed to carry guns. We want to have better gun laws. We want o live like that because it is obvious, we are already living worse than that! We want to see an end to politicisation of development and marginalization.

Am sure many of you know that if a fire broke out in a part of say a town like Ongata Rongai, there would be no way the firefighters would access most such buildings especially since most of the roads leading to the residences of the dwellers there are just 3 metres wide or less and often full of human and other traffic jams. In fact, no two vehicles can by-pass each other on them. And the situation of poor town planning is mirrored everywhere we go, whether it is a small town or a big town! No wonder we are seeing new growth attempts coming up like 'Tatu city', 'Migaa', 'Thika Green', etc, albeit with exhorbitant price tags. We must accept that it is the kind of impunity that was echoed in the voice of the great ugali-eating madam that has contributed to all this. Greed and avarice of the highest order, backed by visionless leadership that has never set in their agenda what they would want to truly see in 5, 10, 20 or even 30 years time. We all seem to have embraced myopia as a way of life. If the current roads network is anything to go by, be assured that in the next 5 years, no matter where you will want to travel to, you will experience traffic jams. It applies to Mombasa highway as well as to Nairobi-Nakuru-Eldoret highway. Similarly to Kericho-Kisii, Bomet-Narok, just think of any road, and visualize a case where we have to contend with 1 million new cars in the country, more money to spend and travel and you begin to get the picture. So it means we have to develop air and rail travels, but with the current crop of leaders, you can write all that off. In fact, write off also the development of new roads, towns, housing and any other necessary infrastructure. And many more. We must double the rate of current development pace, in order to truly catch up, otherwise, we will remain singing the same songs. And it does not happen by having arrogant ugali eaters in place!

We all have the same problems and if the demos to oust these evil systems and people from power are done in a way that leaves no room for looting and the police support it and the army and GSU refuse to be used to kill and scare off civilians, then the system will have to bow down and it would give us a chance to change the order of things. Right now, there are too many selfish games being played all over the nation, and which will get worse with the Ugatuzi thing in 2012. When the big guy decides to trash the constitution and do his own thing because he is in power, every one knows and feels the pain of betrayal. And we all know that in spite of the stake they have in the nation, to them it is more like the sun is setting and they feel they need only do token-ist work where their greatest input is needed in birthing the second liberation. Instead of living the legacy they have often dreamt of, they have decided to settle imaginary vendettas. So, let us pray God that we shall have capacity and fervor to take any bull that needs to be taken down by the horns when the time comes. Surprisingly, it wont be any of the current leaders, not even Raila, who shall make the call for the revolution. It will be some young people like you, whose voice shall echo and mirror things that not even Raila or Kibaki might now want to know exist.