There was once a boat made of muhogo…. a group of rats were abode trying to cross a river…. then the leaders of the rats decided to apportion themselves large portions of the cassava… and started nibbling the vessel. None of the rats survived the drowning, even the leaders.
You see a nation can be like that boat. We are all in this together. But we allow politicians to eat large sections of the boat because they are from our coalition, county, constituency or party or what have you.
I don’t understand why people are not outraged when they hear rumors of graft by the state or state officials. Gandhi said that “for a man to say he is not interested in politics is like a drowning man saying he is not interested in water!” Politics determines your net salary, your house and medical allowance, the price of mandazi in your lunch kibanda, the price of the glue chokoras sniff, which road is more priority, how many schools will be built in your village, the final price of the car you buy, the fare you pay in a mat, the price of petrol, whether children will continue to die of preventable diseases, whether there is food security in arid areas, whether our cities are safe or laden with gangs and terrorists, whether you can travel the world freely or your passport is useless, whether people die naturally at ripe old age or they die of involvement in road accidents, flattening under collapsed buildings, drinking from poisoned rivers, breathing in polluted air daily, eating genetically modified foods etc. It is unwise to say you are not interested in politics, you are drowning in politics!!! Majority of lives in Africa are a function of how good or bad the politics are in the nation.
We should get outraged when we hear misappropriation of health resources. We all get outraged when Al Shabab kill 10 of citizens. The media trends the news for a week. Obama calls with a solidarity message. We start #weAreOne tags, there is such a strong sense of patriotism. Even the sick withstand long queues trying to donate blood to ‘survivors’. That is good anger. The funny thing is that 150,000 children die every year before reaching five [source: WHO data 2015]. Because of ante-natal diseases that are treatable and have been paid for!!! And drugs have been budgeted for and ‘procured’. 21.7% of deaths each year occur waaaay before their victim’s life expectancy and are caused by communicable diseases that are treatable [source: WHO data 2015].
Where’s the outrage? Corruption, ego-centrism, selfishness, greed and acute administrative apathy kills 300,000 people annually and were good! Then Al shabaab kill 10 and we pretend we are now angry!!!!!!???? Peleka hasira kuleeeeeeeee. Kenyans we need to be angry when funds are mismanaged!
–BY Cliff Kimani- Jamhuri News