Only your vote can save me from the indignity of Mathare

Fellow Kenyans, my name is Collins Magero, aged 27, and I live in the Mathare slums of Nairobi.

I am typing this message to you from a friend’s cybercafe, and I must get to the point fast because he needs the computer for business. So here goes:

It is tragic that during these eleventh-hour campaigns, we continuously fall “high-privileged” victims to our leaders, who are so used to duping us in the name of selling policies that lying has sort of become a pastime. This time we ought to be careful as politics has been turned into a platform for chaos and self-gratification.

The distribution of wealth has become grossly unjust, courtesy of the leaders we elect. A few individuals in this country are filthy rich while the rest, like me, remain immersed in poverty and absolute want. It pains me to see how we seem to never learn from our choices, and, as the wearer of the shoe, I know how mercilessly it pinches.

In the distribution of our resources, the greatest attention is bestowed upon the leaders we elect and their cronies, while the common man, the you and me whose voices are not loud enough, suffer the consequences of our ignorance.

Walking the tight rope

In my neighbourhood of Mathare, many young people — who, like me, are jobless despite the potential — walk the tight rope, balancing between despair and hope. With no godfathers in the right positions, our fate is as good as sealed, but we dream on, hoping against hope that the gods will hearken to our calls.

Security here is a pipedream and gangs call the shots all year round. When someone is robbed or, worse, killed, the collective fingers of the society points towards me and my ilk, the jobless youth who spend entire days doing absolutely nothing other than wallow in their misery.

Here in the slums, talent goes to waste. I, for instance, and despite having what I consider a sober mind, have been turned into garbage collector. I spend days unblocking sewers and hauling trash across the slum, yet I know I can do better. The policies of the people you put in power are killing us, people!

Mathare is the face of how bad an informal settlement can get. It is the face of how government neglect and poor leadership can spawn the most despicable eyesore you can imagine. Yet we live here, going to bed at night but spending the night staring through the walls of the weather-beaten hovels we call home.

I will tell you this: this system is bleeding us dry. Like you, we pay taxes, but should we, really? Aren’t we already laden enough? Isn’t the burden of life itself enough for our weary backs?

Constant luxury

A flood of licentiousness has swept over the current Cabinet as sensual enjoyment has become the chief objective of its life. Frivolous amusement and ostentatious living have become their second nature as they strive to keep themselves in constant luxury. Do you see the amazing profusion of the voluptuous embellishments of life and the wares of pleasure and luxury among them?

This unquenchable passion for amusement, this hideous excess of sensuality, is by no means confined to the big personalities we vote for. No, not at all. Our society, from the highest to the lowest, has degenerated into scandalous dissipation. The distinguished and the high-born maintain fantastic standards of living, lest they lose face in fraternity.

In this elective season, their campaign convoys have been raising eyebrows from day one. Their high-class and expensive engines set the pace in style and fashion as they proudly show off their tantalising appearances. Yes, they are too absorbed in pleasures to pay heed to our plight. Their promises are, indeed, empty.

The years 2007/08 left a terrible tale of pain, suffering and bloodshed after the announcement of the elections results. Large bodies of displaced persons marched on foot, seeking refuge. Instead of stopping this warring situation, our leaders could not get out of their extravagant habits, even in this gravest of emergencies.

Politics has become a dreadful curse, fellow Kenyans, and our politicians’ insatiable greed has been laid bare by the inhuman methods they employ to spark off inter-ethnic rivalry. But it goes beyond this. The administrative and finance structure of the nation is neither just nor stable.

What really grieves me are the social divisions and the unconquerable distances between the high and the low; the rank misery of the poor and the heartless exploitation of the weak by the strong. It may not be peculiar to Kenya, but it still pains.

On one end are the rich and the privileged, people for whom life is a bed of roses as they roll in wealth. On the other are the common masses, the ‘Mes’ for whom life is an unending series of hardships. Caught in the ever-tightening noose of taxes, we live in abject poverty. Material needs and interests have, in one way or the other, woven a web round our leaders and made them prisoners.

As we count down to Kibaki’s exit from State House, as long roadshow trucks blow monstrous horns and play loud music, we have to be careful about to whom we wholesale surrender our votes to.

Do not allow yourself to be taken for granted, lured with money to cast your vote for the wrong character. My climb up from Mathare to decent living depends on your vote, and I count on you to help me through this journey. I have wallowed in this poverty long enough, so please look beyond tribe, political party and all the promises of splendour on March 4.

I hope I can count on you.

— Collins Magero lives in the Mathare slums of Nairobi. Although a graduate of the former Kenya Polytechnic, he is unemployed and clears sewer trenches, besides doing other menial jobs, to earn a living.