Freedom without responsibility and it is nobody’s fault: That is Kenya

I am not a pessimist. I love and appreciate Kenya, but I sometimes take a look around and despair. It is only in Kenya that folks do not see the contradiction in seeking to live a life of freedom and no responsibility.

Men father children they never raise and women spend their married lives chasing men.

Laws are fair when they suit us and unfair when we want to break them. In Kenya we go to court to stop investigators from collecting evidence and the courts listen to us.

And so the temples of justice act to defeat justice. Thus, if an innocent citizen of the Republic of Kenya is attacked in my office, I can go to court to block the police from collecting a sample from me for DNA testing.

If I take a weapon and discharge it into the brain of, say, the most annoying matatu driver on Kenyatta Avenue, I can go to court to block the authorities from prosecuting me.

And the courts, rather than saying: “Come, we’ll hear you quickly even as your other case progresses,” they will freeze the case and I play games, file a million cases until I die peacefully in my sleep of old age, undisturbed by justice.

ONLYTWO VIEWS
People go to court to be given the freedom to die in office. And if the courts order us to do something, we sit back and think and think. Then we go back to the judge and ask: “What did you say again?”

Only in Kenya will you find people — and I use the term with generosity — driving at breakneck speed. On the wrong side of the road. It is a mad activity in which men, women, young, old, respectable, disreputable, take part in on Kiambu Road especially (and Thika highway when there is Alcoblow).

When they meet oncoming traffic, they panic and swerve back into their lane, thus contributing to one of the highest accident rates of any road in Africa.

In our country, there are only two views: a Cord view and a Jubilee view.

Pretence and polite hypocrisy might pass themselves off as independent thought but in actual fact, the truly independent-minded Kenyans are maybe five or six and you are right now pretending to be one of them.

The smaller the stuff we are sweating, the deeper the disagreement.

ONLY IN KENYA
Here, nothing is anybody’s responsibility. If El Niño floods Narok, I can guarantee that the county bosses will look upon the damage with the same outraged shock as ourselves.

Kenyans look at their duties the way a rich man looks at his shamba boy milking the cow: A blend of detached curiosity and uneasy ownership. Yes I am the governor, but how is the traffic chaos my fault?

And just like nothing is anybody’s responsibility, nothing is anybody’s fault. So, the plane is falling out of the sky because I forgot to fuel it, how is that my fault?

It is Friday night, I am so drunk I cannot keep my eyes open and I have driven the car up a tree. Surely, how is that my fault? Accidents happen to the best of us. Especially to the best of us.

And in Kenya, every opportunity is a crooked chance to make money. We come to office thin and leave it round; we come speaking principles and leave talking about practicalities.

Only in Kenya.

In 2006 we almost got rich. The economy was growing furiously, interest rates were low, people were buying things they did not need. Then things went wrong, the cost of fuel rose from Sh46 to more than Sh80.

TOUGH TIMES AHEAD

Dreams of getting rich wafted away like cigar smoke and we all went back to the business of struggling and talking big.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but looking out of the window, I think we are going to have a tough time. Interest on large deposits is almost 20 per cent, up from 11 per cent about two or three months ago.

Interest on loans is around 25 per cent, unless you are a big, rich company. With those kinds of costs, there is nothing you can do, not even buying up slices of heaven, and make a decent return.

Inflation is almost at six per cent and surging along.

Miracles do happen: Tourism might recover, something may happen in agriculture and dollars flood in.

We have not needed a belt for 10 years, but with the El Niño rains hanging over us like tears, it might now be wise not just to look for one, but to actually tie it and tighten it.