In July of 2013, I composed an article whose topic has declined to leave form, buttressing the way that because of the fact that Kenyans cherish discussing transform, they are not prepared to impact and grasp it.
Change is the thing that we need, is a hold back for Kenyans, however when an open door for grasping change presents itself, Kenyans fall back on that old line, Si unajua to Wakenya (you simply know Kenyans), and afterward it is illicit the same old thing.
Kenyans’ attitude toward change is probably captured in a short story that was told by a late tycoon from Kiambu who we have been told started by selling charcoal and ended up building an empire which his children could fight for.
Some years back, he partnered with, or brought in a South African firm which he thought had superior brands, but Kenyans would hear none of that. His cause was not helped by shopkeepers either because they continued offering customers local brands without asking them if they would prefer the SA product.
The tycoon was flabbergasted and he said that he started seeing this attitude of not being ready for change in his household with his wife who refused to “upgrade” to superior products even after they had made money and stuck to inferior ones which they were using when he was still struggling.
“Kenyans do not like change,” he used to say — and I guess he did not stop saying so because his SA partners closed shop, or were forced out by competition or lack of customers.
And so, barely three years ago, just a week after the Global Corruption Barometer was released by Transparency International, I penned a piece which concluded that corruption is Kenya’s legal tender considering that Kenya was listed as the fourth most corrupt country after Liberia, Sierra Leone and Yemen.
Kenyans whined like they had always done when other corruption reports were released, and spoke about change, then they went back to their old ways. There is also something else Kenyans used to do apart when such reports were released. They used to deny, and government officials would seek comfort in the fact that there are countries where corruption is worse and Kenyans should not complain so much.
Their claim has always been that some Western powers that are jealous of Kenyan’s progress are out to give it a bad name so they release such damning reports which are full of lies because corruption is non-existent within our shores. But either way, corruption has become the only way of life in Kenya, it is considered the best form of negotiation so much so that there are people who are employed by the government, directly or indirectly, to deny its existence, and defend the government — yes, because their livelihood depends on corrupt deals.
For a better part of the last three weeks, and more so last week, this group of dunderheads has been working overtime to insult the collective intelligence of Kenyans by saying that corruption exists in the minds of a few individuals who are anti-government.
This was happening at a time when senior government officials who were fingered to have been responsible for the loss of billions of shillings were not denying that several deals in their dockets were shady.
People have cursed, and sworn that there is need for change if corruption is to be eradicated, or that the parental authority under whose watch probably trillions of shillings cannot be accounted for has to be shown the door, but truth be said, nothing will change.
To quote, and also paraphrase my 2013 article which was published in a different daily, corruption is the glue that holds the Kenyan society together in maternity wards, hospitals, jails, schools, churches, polling centres, farmlands, entertainment joints, newsrooms, courts, police stations, big and small offices, informal settlements, palatial residences, on the streets, superhighways and even in mortuaries, cemeteries and crematoriums.
Corruption is the alpha, the omega and everything in between — the shield and defender to forever hold, love and cherish without which this nation would not have grown, developed and become known.
Corruption is that bottomless pit where the politically-correct individuals, the government’s chosen few have thrown Kenyans in — and they will wallow in it for generations as long as they are not ready to effect and embrace change.
