We must all support the war on graft

Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero (right) and former county Treasury boss Maurice Okere appear at the Milimani Law Courts on August 9, 2018. They are accused of corruption. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The appointment of a new Director of Public Prosecutor seems to have brought a new spirit into the game.

  • A corrupt person can pay anything to anybody in order to survive and continue with what they do.
  • All government arms must work together in honest and with the will to save this country.

The arrest of the former governor of Nairobi and the demolitions that have started, in my view, seem to pronounce that the war against corruption is truly on.

Of course as President Uhuru Kenyatta says, government officers who gave those certificates ought to be held accountable. The war better be on because many of us Kenyans thought it would never start. That is why many of us keep talking about the political class against the rest of us.

At least now we can say that something has started happening. The appointment of a new Director of Public Prosecutor seems to have brought a new spirit into the game.

FIGHT CORRUPTION

When we passed a new constitution in 2010 — of course many of us did not quite read it — we sanctioned a lot of things.

One of them is that we established a commission that we hoped would fight corruption.

Up to this time, that body has not done much but they seem to be moving this time round. Why now?

There must be a new resolve on the part of the top leadership of this country.

That resolve is an initiative that every genuine Kenyan must support because it is the only way our nation can survive. But how possible is that?

TRUSTING LOT

For the longest time in our existence as a nation we have been a trusting lot and accepted what our “leaders” did and said. We now know that many of those “leaders” were doing what they did for themselves and not for us.

My worry and fear is that there is a generation that has grown up in the last twenty thirty years that knows nothing else about leadership or how to be Kenyan.

If corruption is not demolished in the shortest period possible then the future of our nation and the younger generation are in serious danger.

But then it has become a culture and it is common knowledge that corruption fights back and will most definitely use those younger people.

This is where the three arms of government come in.

WORK TOGETHER

The resistance by corrupt people comes mainly in spending the money they have made through the same corrupt root. A corrupt person can pay anything to anybody — policeman, judge, government officer — or whoever in order to survive and continue with what they do.

All government arms must work together in honest and with the will to save this country. Looking at the way things have been going, one may want to ask whether these arms of government are, in spite of their individual independence, actually agreed on which way this country must go in this matter of corruption. It was a delight listening to the Chief Justice the other day, taking a tough stand in support of the war on corruption.

 The writer is dean of students and sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi; [email protected]