Crash course in driving

• Most careless and unkindest take on circumcision.

Reading Jug Suraiya’s ‘Jugular Vein, column in the Sunday Times of India (www.timesofindia.com), I came across a passage, or rather an experience that many road users in Kenya go through every day.

I might as well use it to give a clear picture of the main diversion that engages our country’s reverse gear whenever our leaders talk shop about forging ahead.

“The other day while I was driving along a pothole my car fell onto a road. It gave me quite a start; rather, it gave me quite a stop. And so did it to a lot of other people who had gathered there to marvel at this rare find. A road. Well, a small section of road. But how amazing to find any road, no matter how small and limited in size…”

Sound familiar? If you use private or public transport in Nairobi, or in any other Kenyan town, then this is something you go through every day, the same way you are bombarded with messages of Vision 2030 and meeting of Millenium Development Goals – whatever those are.

But things are looking up. Don’t you think so? They have to be, now that the indefatigable John Michuki is in charge, even though in an acting capacity, at the Treasury – and that is proof enough that we do not have strong institutions, but individuals and we all know what they cannot do.

Roadside declarations

Don’t we all know that Michuki has no ability to stop Presidential candidates from issuing roadside declarations that allow public service vehicle drivers to obstruct, overlap, pick up passengers in the middle of the highway and drop them off anywhere, and if they so wish, go to work undressed?

After all, they can argue that they are most productive in their birthday suits, and those of them with progeny can add – legitimately – that there is living proof of their productivity.

There is no gainsaying that Michuki has the drive, and the torque of his thrust, or vice versa, can be seen and felt in the cloud of dust he leaves behind as he breaks speed barriers while riding roughshod over potholes and those small sections of roads that exist in every nook and cranny of our ministries 44 years after independence.

His recent move is a case in point and might as well have been aimed at increasing the small sections of roads, decreasing congestion at the ports or even the sizes and numbers of potholes that dot every space in all our towns and cities.

It is indeed a crash course in driving and if pulled off, we are going to be the most spacious nation – that might even reduce the spaces in the heads of many motorists who give currency to the idea that Kenya needs a road safety week or day every week or daily.

Looked at from a rear view mirror, it will go a long way in reducing congestion in many sectors of our economy as everything that has remained in one place for eons without being productive will be done away with, or in the words of Mr Michuki himself, destroyed.

There are very many voices calling his move callous, and coming up with economically-viable solutions – or so they think. They forget that when it comes to following rules to the letter, Michuki is a stickler and does not give a hoot to anything else any other person says.

Of course we are free to argue that he applies same philosophy when breaking rules. But one thing is for sure: It’s un-michukish to back down.

The people who may want the Michuki way of doing away with all non-productive things or people may be Kenya’s sportsmen and women who are being held back by officials who are not only living in a time warp, but who have made a career out of flip flopping on every issue including their own statements about serving their last terms.

Civil servants may be second group of people to wish that these rules become applicable in their cadres because the service is laden with deadwood that champions archaic ideas which cannot work in 21st century economies.

They are the people calling the shots, and in return, get called by the big shots to hire and fire others who have also been causing congestion at ports of entry and exit without themselves getting cleared and forwarded so that they can create space for new, and modern contraptions that can change our lives and push us in the 22nd century.

Currently, they have engaged reverse gear and are backing us up in to the 19th century.

Government paper pushers

What about constitutional offices or the holders thereof? This area needs a lot of clearing urgently.

It is not only congested but full of paper pushers who barely use other parts of their anatomies save for their arms with which they scribble on letters and push files from one desk to the other and from one office to the next without stopping to read and understand what the last person wrote or what the whole process means to the future of this country.

What they have created is an “assembly line” public service whereby you have no idea what the person behind you or the one after you does. Even if they make mistakes, you are least bothered because you did your bit.

Thanks to their lack of interest in their duties, our road to efficiency is still potholed and listening to the people who are supposed to have a clear Vision of 2030 only gives you a jet lag.

Numerous areas are blocked by non-performing entities and the port might be a good place to start the destruction process. The only problem is that some people may use roundabout ways and re-route these expired goods back to our potholes and cause further congestion.

This is more the reason why our public offices need to be cleared of the old guard. It has lost the verve to take care of our interests and is busy driving us into poverty every hour of the day.

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Colour clashes

You have to give it to Kenya’s mobile phone service providers for easing up communication woes in a country where miscommunication is the rule.

Many columns ago, there was a joke that Government mandarins were mad at Kencell. No, Celtel. I am sorry, Zain for ignoring the economic gains made by the Kibaki Administration and honouring the then Leader of the Official Opposition Uhuru Kenyatta by coming up with Uhuru tariff.

The competition, it was rumoured then, wanted to come up with an Orange tariff with seven different calling rates in honour of the then seven presidential contestants of the Orange Democratic Movement. This did not happen.

But with the entry of Orange in the mobile telephony industry, ODM’s supporters are gloating and falling all over themselves to acquire the Orange line which they have christened ODM – Orange Device Mobile (sic) – line.

If the past is anything to go by, what will happen come 2012 when commerce and politics will clash over corporate colours: Remember the Kenya ferry Services had to rename or decommission one of its boats which was called mv Safina because of the Safina political party.

Or the director of information who tried to block— with his body — the brand name FORD on a tractor during a Labour Day walk-past? His logic? The name was rubbing President Moi the wrong way.

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Unkindest take

Is it true that nothing succeeds like excess or nothing exceeds like success?

Methinks all those statements are true, depending on your take on life especially if you believe that sex sells, even if it is bad sex like what fills our airwaves every morning, noon and night, thanks to tabloid radio.

Excess sex has succeeded on Kenya’s terrestrial landscape and radio presenters’ high ratings are proof enough that success breeds excess and vice versa, and that handsome is not just what handsome does, but on numerous occasions, what he doesn’t.

Many a time, people argue that there is so much bad sex around because the young and the restless give a new meaning to the term necking and lose no time in stopping to make out and starting to make in at the dingiest, yet the most public of places where you can only be thrust in to by lack of funds and/or your own digs.

Many not-so-innocent bystanders are caught in the middle and cannot extricate themselves from these cavortious situations which anticlimax in careless talk and high risk behaviour since lack of funds and homelessness are as common as drunkenness and poor judgment.

Having established that poverty and homelessness are integral parts of our successive Governments’ Five Year Plans, we can as well argue that discussing bad sex is much safer – even as we indecently expose our ignorance – than engaging in an activity that not only causes heartaches, but leaves us nursing terminal wounds because we are in a hurry to get it off our system and cannot spend a few moments to acquire protective gear and even fewer moments to don them.

On the issue of lack of accommodation, we can safely argue that condominiums are expensive to put up, but such an argument cannot hold much fluid when it comes to condoms because the latter should be a mandatory accessory since we are fully aware of our weaknesses when it comes to matters of the flesh. But I digress.

Radio conversations start with very classic questions that have bothered women for ages. “Would you allow your man to have his finger and toe nails done, or would you date a man who spends more money on his hair than on your drinks?” the presenter asks.

Before you can say FM, a caller loses focus and the whole discussion moves from finger and toe nails to above the knees but below the navel.

As this happens, you feel the presenters’ ratings rising as he encourages listeners to bare all and bring the discussion to a climactic end.

As temperatures, ratings and volumes rise, you can feel the increase in careless, nay, ignorant talk as life and death issues are debated in a manner which clearly manifests our casual and careless attitude and approach towards sex in a clime which is ravaged by numerous sexually transmitted septicemias.

At the beginning of this week, the tabloid radio stations’ sex topic was circumcision and listeners were falling all over themselves to air their opinions on whether the sheath adds value or whether you will be “bed and bored” without it.

Surprisingly, no callers said anything about the protective latex sheath made popular by Durex. And none of the presenters mentioned it either probably because it was going to have a stultifying effect on an otherwise orgasmic talk, which was meant to improve their ratings and give us insights into the difference between bad and very bad indulgence.

All in all, the underlying message that was being aired was that circumcision eliminates the chances of contracting life-threatening infections and therefore, as long as you have undergone the cut, you can engage in unprotected sex.

It was the most careless and unkindest take on circumcision, and I and many other listeners without the wherewithal for making calls and being put on hold for ages were left wondering if circumcision is the panacea for STIs – yet it is common knowledge that even those who are circumcised are seropositive and many others who are not are HIV-negative.

It is this kind of attitude and high levels of ignorance that are responsible for high HIV and AIDS prevalence.

Instead of using the means and resources at their disposal to spread the knowledge how HIV and AIDS can be prevented, tabloid radio presenters and their listeners reduced the issue to a good sex/bad sex debate.

Their public display of ignorance only confirmed your worst fears that whenever we open our mouths to talk about HIV and AIDS, we only perpetuate stigmatisation of people living with the virus.

We are so fickle-minded that we easily get carried away by sex talk and deliberately forget that the biggest weapon against HIV and AIDS is not the cut or not, but attitude change because HIV and AIDS does not discriminate. We are the ones who do.