Once again, the year hatches a Christmas festive, a season of love, recklessness, compassion and over indulgence as has been the tradition. But I beg to defy the conventional mood, by fixating my reflections on the grim happenstances that trolled the country this year—the Westgate terror incident claimed close to 70 lives and property worth millions of shillings destroyed, road carnage which is quickly outgunning malaria as the number one killer, insecurity, the shame of jigger plague in Murang’a, ethnic fissures in the Northern Kenya and North Rift counties— quickly come to mind and define 2013.
That was not all because there was disturbing news that kept propping torrentially from various parts of the country led by Vihiga county, an area quickly gaining notoriety for pedophile attacks with Butula district in Busia County leading the pack of teenage pregnancies and rape, Naivasha with never- ending tales of child molestation, the obnoxious propositions by the county representatives and governors to oil their insatiable obscene opulence, and the sad news that students in Baringo public schools have become adept at dodging snakes in class during flooding, and a leadership that grew horns instead of antennas to grasp public mood.
In this season of reflection, lessons from the book of Ecclesiastes 3:7 should transform every Kenyan into an inspector of seasons; for there comes a time to finger point and a time for hands clasping, a time to lambast and a time to introspect, a time to destruct and a time to construct, a time for complacency and a time to raise the expectations bar.
It is also a time to take responsibilities for our action while cognizant of the fact that we are but an integral component of a unit called Kenya, and therefore our every effort is either a put brick that build the national edifice or a fault line that deconstructs it. In the words of US President Barack Obama; “we are the change we’ve been waiting for”.
If we don’t raise our voice or conscience now, some fiends will rise up to fill the void thereby distorting the national dream; actually as people it’s time to be vigilant lest the devil pays us a short visit. It is prudent, too, to revisit article 10 of the Constitution on the National values and above all stand the towering patriotism, national unity, human dignity, social justice, integrity, transparency, accountability and non-discrimination among others.
Then I posit: Are these values supposed to exist in a vacuum, is there a lacuna where aliens from Mars can propel these virtues? No, it‘s me, you, its all of us—it’s the total sum of the society that constitute a national moral edifice. So if a driver, just like the other day, of Mombasa Raha bus registration KBN 868A that left Nairobi for Mombasa on December 22 armed with rapacious capitalistic appetite drives carelessly and threatening to send his passengers to their early grave, then the passengers were right to order him to stop.
And any other Kenyan being ferried on public transport should develop both vim, gravitas and temerity to tell off any reckless driver. Like Gandhi noted; “Commerce without morality/ethics is one of the greatest evils”. Friends at times it’s good to be late to your destination than be forever late. Equally, this is the time to plead with the national government to spare the livelihoods of more than 100,000 civil servants to “tame the waging wage bill” in its planned retrenchment.
Let them audit the bloated government positions, cull those tangential posts used to reward cronyism, nepotism or any other “ism” but let the civil servants stay. The president should borrow a leaf from Malawi where in October 2012, President Joyce Banda took a 30 per cent pay cut. I bet this will inspire other elected leaders or highly paid state officers to act or even ‘pretend to act’.
This is also the time to salute the National Transport and Safety Authority for the on going prolific campaigns to tame wanton road carnage. My appeal today assumes the foam of conscientious appeal or what Greek philosopher Aristotle called Pathos: “countrymen, this is our country, let’s build it together. Let’s be men and women of great reflection; who do right things even if they know they will never be found out”. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year beloved countrymen. - By Onyango Ochieng
The writer is a political & communication consultant.
The post It’s time to introspect, build better Kenya appeared first on The People.