If Nyambane can’t make sensible comments, he should return to the writer's room

The circus that is Kenya continues. If you looked at this country from the outside, it would seem that not only do we have our priorities in a twist and billions to spare, but on top of that, the people at the root of the policy problems that result in our current ones are laughably blaming these series of events on anyone and everyone but themselves.

It's almost too much material for an editorial cartoonist to handle, really. Anything that they draw to be outlandish, a few weeks later just proves to be true.

I'm speaking, of course, of several consecutive recent events. For one, there is the usual hullabaloo about Kenya's morality and its conservations, spearheaded by a few right-wing leaders who choose to focus on the decay of society instead of the decaying humans that populate it.

ECONOMY

Oftentimes our leaders have been seen and heard saying that matters that have to do with sexuality are a non-issue and we should focus on the more important things, like development and poverty eradication. The weighty things that truly affect our economy and our forward movement.

But even after all that hot air is released, there is still no consequence after these words. No one behind the scenes is arrested – only the puppets attached to the strings attached to the ever-deepening pockets of the scandals. And the scandals continue, so much so that they are now being duplicated, touted as the version 2.0s of the scandals that happened before.

Once again, I'm speaking, of course, of the recent NYS scandal that was on the cover of the Daily Nation yesterday, showing Kenya's richest hairdresser, and the proof that was cited that allegedly saw her receive Sh60 million for delivering nothing but air – perhaps the air that our politicians heat to then spew at us during press conferences and public gatherings in the form of promises.

Look at this tweet by Ciru Muriuki:

The cost of a linear accelerator machine (LINAC machine) used for radiotherapy for cancer patients begins at $500,000 (KSH 50.4 million). The Josephine Kabura 2.0 had KSH 59 million deposited into her account.

And that's just a small piece of context that spurs an entire painful conversation on how cancer, and cancer patients, and cancer patients who don't have money, are treated in this country. It's gotten to the point where I have seen people online making mock-ups of applications to participate in the next scandal – because there's always a next scandal.

PROPAGANDA

I realise that the images are a joke, but it feels like a reality for many – for those who are told go to school, work hard, move to the big city with the bright lights and you'll get a good job, and you'll be able to survive and thrive, provide for your family, save up a little nest egg and live out your life in middle-class comfort.

We are taught wrong. And the people who know they are selling us these lies continue to unashamedly hide behind the veneer of ill-informed propaganda, and/or defiant ignorance.

I'm speaking, of course, then, about the comments that the comedian Nyambane made at a public forum yesterday. I don't say former comedian, because he's still clearly either performing for an audience to laugh, or making a joke – or he's just downright rude. He said that the problem with entitled millennials is that we are lazy (I paraphrase. You can find the exact quote here).

Yes, my generation is lazy, which is why they cannot get jobs. There we go. A cut-and-dried solution. Easy-peasy. Why in the world didn't we think of this before? If we want jobs we must go and get them! We must go and pluck them from the tree the government has planted in the middle of the CBD that has job descriptions for everyone in all shapes and sizes. If you kosa at that tree, there's another one over there at (Not Yet) Uhuru Park. Mind-blowing stuff. Go out and get the jobs. What a revolution.

If this comment was meant to distract me from everything else going on, it most certainly accomplished its purpose, because here I am, writing angrily about it. My first thought when I read his comments was, how dare this man claim to speak on something he so clearly knows nothing about?

But then I realised he must know something about it, seeing as he didn't necessarily come from a founding-father family. He, like every other Kenyan not born to ostentatious privilege, had to find a way to make it in an economy in which only 2.78 per cent make above Sh100,000 a month. He chose comedy and is continuing to choose it, even as he realises where the most money is – in government.

He must know what it means to be young and broke in this economy. The only difference is that in this time we live in, the brokeness is systemic, and on a much larger scale than it previously was. Millennials and youth in this country are not jobless because they want to be.

What a silly thing to say. If you carve off the small percentage who are choosing a life of homeless leisure (hobos who lunch and all that), there are people walking around with undergraduate papers, master’s degrees, and PhDs with no jobs. There are many people like that. Many people who would love just a chance to stand on their own two feet.

One of the functions of government is to take care of its citizens. All its citizens. The old ones. The disabled ones. The weaker ones. The disenfranchised ones. The unemployed ones. If not in terms of welfare a la the Great Americas, in terms of creating jobs. It is why we pay taxes – so that the larger organised body that we have voted in and effectively handed the tools to do so, in the forms of things like a system of democracy, legislature and tax as mentioned, can then take on the roles that we as individuals, or communities, or #KOT, or millennials cannot do for ourselves.

If the people of Kenya are starving, or jobless, as the gap between the rich and the poor – nay, the chasm – widens seemingly irrevocably, that is not the fault of the people. It is the fault of the system, perpetuated by ignorance like this statement, unexamined and rude, that makes it so. And if Nyambane is not willing to make a studied commentary on the actual state of affairs instead of appealing to a public that he no longer relates to, then perhaps he should return to the writer's room and keep quiet.

Twitter: @AbigailArunga