AMENYA: Kenya is a nation under ICU

By Albert Amenya

How Kenya is still surviving is not only mysterious, but also unbelievable! I have read about a lot of strong nations but I am certain they cannot withstand the incredible trauma, damage, bracing flaunt of illegal wealth, dehumanization and pauperization of citizens like we have in Kenya.

Pardon this writer for the use of strong words to convey his message. Some visits to developed countries can make you go crazy with psychological trauma about the uninhabitable situations in Kenya.

Kenya is the most profitable place to do dubious multinational business. If you are a truthful person in Kenyan business environment, you hardly can make it without committing a self-annihilation of your mind and brutal damage to your esteemed conscience.

As a multinational company, if you know your way as a foreign company; if you can identify with political cults and do some buybacks or paybacks through political leverage, you will reap unmeritable gold and profits from Kenya.

You will be among the kings of corruption; you will easily dine and wine with sung political elites who are cabals in the ruination of Kenya. Meanwhile, by engaging in the mindless and needless deceit, you just have to collaborate with the rogue politicians and the corrupt civil servants; you will go away with so many criminal business activities. Kenya is a lawless country whose gullible citizens are disgruntled accomplices in raping their nation’s resources, and the future of their children.

In retrospect, look at the crooked Ken Cell and the vulture Safaricom at their debut in Kenya in early 2000s. These two companies in collaboration with the mindless government swindled the gullible Kenyan citizens of their hard-earned billions of shillings. Kenya was a bazaar for the multinational companies.

As Kenyans were being introduced to mobile telecommunications and to the global village, these mercantilists feasted on gullible Kenyans unfettered and unrestrained. We were raped blue, and there was no consumer protection agency or government establishment to check the ghoul business activities of these mobile providers. The pseudo-protection agency established by parliament was a conduit pipe to milk the unsuspecting and hapless Kenyans. It was all a hoax for political reasons.

Hard earned billions of dollars belonging to Kenyans have vanished into the pockets of rogue politicians who collaborate with foreign companies. Their mansions and investments are scattered around the choice and highbrow areas in the western world.

Yet, the unserious Kenyans celebrate these people with impunity and nonchalant mesmerism. These criminals come back to Kenya after investing our money in Europe and dumping the rest in offshore accounts, with triumphant entry to their kith and kin’s tumultuous welcome. A shameless country that is the cynosure and mockery of all eyes in the international community.

Disgustingly, any attempt to fight these corrupt people is usually met with stiffness and brutal resistance of corrupt people and their children who are symbiotically corded with them. It is not a hype to say these children of corruption suffer from Stockholm syndrome. In the process of fighting corruption, you’ll be made a sacrificial lamb.

The best brains of Kenya are in graveyards. They have selflessly utilized their brains for the emancipation of the vulnerable Kenyans, these gallant heroes and heroines have died prematurely through the state orchestrated political assassinations. 

Pio Gama Pinto (1965), Tom Mboya (1969), J.M. Kariuki (1975), were all assassinated for challenging Kenyatta’s evils. Julie Ward (1988) Robert Ouko (1990), Alexander Muge (1990), father John Kaiser (2000) and, Student leader Titus Adungosi aka Tito also referred to many as the Steve Biko of Kenya, were all consumed by the Moi regime.

Wangari Maathai, George Moseti Anyona, Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia, and a host of other unsung heroes sacrificed their lives for Kenya, and yet Kenyans remain warped and slumbered away their future in a whirlwind night. 

Kenya is a scary political environment to operate in! Any Hobbesian society is bound to fester with so many vices. Hobbesian society is a society where life is short, brutish and nasty. It will be fully appreciated if this disgruntled writer can be proved wrong if we are not in a state of anomy in Kenya. A nation that celebrates mediocrity in place of meritocracy is sure to be in a state of perpetual economic and political quagmire.

Nauseatingly, everywhere you go in Kenya stinks of graft and corruption. Corruption is an institutionalized problem in Kenya, and people are in a state of confusion and hopelessness. Go to religious houses, it is blasphemous Hallelujah and fake Alhammudullilai everywhere! Saunter unto private and public institutions; do a random audit of selves and most families; or take a stock of the conscience of the nation, your expected results will be stunning and damming. Some prescribed solutions to Kenyan problems are not working because the stakeholders do not want them to work for their instant and future gratification.

Kenyan constitution is said to be among the most progressive in the world yet it isn’t working because corruption has made it a shredded constitution. In Kenya, we are all in Orwellian farm where all animals are equal under this shredded constitution, but one is more equal than the others as long as you have illegal access to common wealth.

The economy of Kenya operates under economic abracadabra. Meanwhile, under this economic voodoo, it is survival of the fittest in the house of commotion, oh sorry! corruption.

How can a country suffering from economic adversity not collectively support war against corruption? Imagine Kenya putting her resources to prudent use, we will be one of the greatest nations on earth. Ruto is a one-man battalion in a country characterized with chronic corruption.

He can’t do more than he’s doing now because he is surrounded with so many corrupt friends; the compromised judiciary and the dishonorable members in the legislative houses. His hands are tied because he’s avoiding to be an autocratic leader in a participatory democracy.

This writer is a Ruto supporter. I may not like his fallibility but his intention to see Kenya get rid of corruption is the cord that attach me to his incorruptible persona. I believe very strongly that the end justifies the means. No government in the history of Kenya has honestly waged an unrepentant war against corruption like Ruto’s. My problem with his administration is that, some of us are impatient supporters to see some corrupt people go to jail.

Because our laws are ineffective to tame these political wolves, that is why the lords of corruption have unfettered audacity to flaunt stolen wealth. As an unrepentant supporter of Ruto, Iam not dismissing people’s opinions as I am not in support of their insinuation about untenable submission or stereotypes of a man trying to rewrite our ugly history as a nation.

Moreover, if Kenyan citizens continue on this path of nonchalant attitude to reduce the epidemic of official corruption, this generation may not be forgiven by the next generation. As Kenya struggles with her life at the intensive care unit of this administration, we must urgently assist her to be rescued from the hands of those who are bent on making her to be in comatose or perpetual political and economic quagmire.

This writer sells bananas in the streets of Kisii town