Cabinet secretaries and other top honchos behaving badly on the road

On the school run Monday morning, I had to take evasive action to avoid a head-on collision with a police car speeding against oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the dual-carriageway Lang’ata Road, just after the Madaraka roundabout.

What really pissed me off is that all that dangerous driving wasn’t in response to an Al-Shabaab attack or other such emergency.

Nor was it an ambulance or fire engine racing on a life-and-death mission: It was simply some government nabob in the trailing four-by-four SUV having the road cleared because he or she didn’t have the patience to endure the morning traffic jam like ordinary mortals.

I have written about this uncouth road behaviour before, but obviously not the Traffic Police Commandant, his Inspector General, the Head of Public Service and Chief of Staff, the President or anybody else in government cares about this surfeit of bad road manners on the part of puffed-up senior civil servants who rate police escort cars.

This lack of road manners we see every day is not just rude, but also dangerous, idiotic, arrogant, criminal and utterly inconsiderate of other road users.

UNBRIDLED ARROGANCE

In other words, it is typical of our despotic and dictatorial ruling classes, and the particularly virulent strain that has come with the Jubilee administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

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Not even during the worst days of the one-party Kanu dictatorship of President Jomo Kenyatta and President Moi did we see every two-bit Cabinet Minister, Permanent Secretary, judge, House Speaker, State corporation boss, constitutional commission chair or other high and mighty public servant given licence to display unbridled arrogance on the roads.

In those days, a security convoy and the right to a clear road was the preserve of the Presidential Escort. Every other personage, including the Vice-President, had to get to wake up early or endure the rush-hour traffic like everybody else.

Even in President Kibaki’s time, when police chase cars" and entire platoons of bodyguards started being dished out like confetti, barrelling down the wrong side of the road was an absolute no-no.

Now it is becoming commonplace under the UhuRuto regime. That is strange because President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have brought a refreshing and easy-going informality to national leadership.

COMPLETELY UNTOUCHABLE

They come across as friendly, open and approachable, with little of the hubris, arrogance and airs that one sees in those thrust into leadership while still struggling with inferiority complexes.

I know for a fact President Kenyatta has tried not to inconvenience other road users, timing his engagements carefully to avoid periods of heavy traffic, and sometimes infuriating his security chiefs by eschewing the bloated motorcade and using a slimmed-down model they think does not befit his office.

If the President is not personally fixated with displaying raw power, I wonder then why he allows his minions to do so.

He must consider that what we see from that behaviour on the roads is not just a rude and arrogant individual, but the ugly face of a regime attuned to dictatorship and brutality.

CONTEMPT FOR THE GOVERNED

What is displayed is a state where the governors treat the governed with utter contempt; a culture where the powerful can act with complete impunity because they know that they stand above the laws and the Constitution; a state where the rich and powerful are completely untouchable, while the hoi polloi must stick strictly to the law or face dreadful consequences.

In other words, we see daily projected on our roads the classical symptoms of a failed State where the laws are mere pieces of paper to be applied selectively to favour the chosen few.

It is in such a state, where the rule of law no longer exists, that we then have the complete breakdown of law and order; unchecked violence in Turkana, Lamu and Wajir; uncontrolled infiltration by terrorists; government capture by poachers, drug barons and other kingpins of organised crime; rampant looting of the public coffers; extrajudicial executions and political assassinations; and self-fulfilling prophecies of ethnic warfare.

If President Kenyatta does not want to lead Kenya down that dark path, he can start by instilling humility and respect for traffic rules within his government.

[email protected] @MachariaGaitho on Twitter