Clay court is not a bad read. Go through this even if I dont get it. The accusation of being biased toward other sections of the population continues to be levelled against the government. Some years back, when a plane whose passengers were mostly Kenyans crashed, the victims’ relatives were urged to report to a swanky Nairobi hotel, where they could be counselled on how deal with the trauma and cope with their losses. The centre was up and running within hours of the news, even before the number of fatalities could be confirmed. At hand to offer help, it was announced, was the country’s top counsellor — whose name is synonymous with psychiatry in the country, I should add. Considering that Kenyans, and specifically Nairobians, love being united in grief, the sad news was a chance to engage in one of the nation’s greatest pastimes - mourning or just looking sad. And there were grim and glum faces all over Nairobi’s streets, restaurants, offices and even drinking joints since this was another excuse for Nairobians to drown their sorrows. UNITED IN GRIEF As more and more Nairobians continued getting sloshed in the name of being united in grief, the government, through its numerous bodies, started sounding and acting as if it was co-ordinating the operations at the centre, which was a good thing because it is the parental authority. Even then, many people were taken aback by the bigotry of the government, which they said does not respond fast enough to tragedies or offer counselling services to survivors or relatives of victims of “less glamorous” disasters like road accidents, fires in informal settlements and collapsing buildings which occur because of its negligence. The accusation of being biased toward other sections of the population continues to be levelled against the government, and even though it does not officially deny or respond to them, it shows discriminative tendencies every now and then. Whenever there is a road accident, and this happens very often, the government’s reaction comes in the form of fiats to the vehicle operators, who are driven off the road for a few hours while little is said about the victims or the people they have left behind. It is annoying how much its agencies waste before they take any action, and the conflicting reports they give thereafter, with some saying the situation is under control, others saying it is far from over and yet others even denying the existence of a situation warranting the State’s intervention. Of course, there are certain parts of the country that bear the brunt of this State-sanctioned inertia and insensitivity, more so when security personnel are among the victims or the people on the receiving end. As if to give legality to the apathy that is exhibited toward them, these parts are officially known as marginalised areas, places where hardship is the order of the day and night. Yeah, far-flung areas which, unlike the rest of the country, are not worth the State’s attention because their contribution to the national financial grid is negligible, nay, non-existent. ALL ABOUT VOTES Funnily, when politicians are running around for votes, they remember these foreign areas while they hop, skip and jump over issues of national importance and instead make promises which they forget about immediately they board their helicopters to continue with their whistle-stop tours of peddling lies and half-truths. The Baragois, the Turkanas and the North Eastern provinces of Kenya are never in the government’s radar, as are other areas that are not as upscale as the Westgates of Nairobi , whose victims corporate firms fall over themselves to give assistance and the middle-class donates thousands of litres of blood that is high in cholesterol and trans fats. Last week, reports reached “Kenya” that security officers and some families were under siege in the marginalised area of Turkana, and the reaction of the government was slower than the slurred speech of a Nairobi-based corporate magnate drunk on premium whisky. As usual, Nairobi-based government agencies gave conflicting reports about the Turkana situation, and it was not easy to tell what was actually going on considering that the “news” broke in Nairobi when the siege was in its third or fourth day. Chances are, it could have been going on for much longer but no one bothered because everybody is busy preparing for the Kenya at Fifty celebrations. So, do the residents of these foreign lands which are in Kenya just on paper — these areas which ideally should not be under the country’s internal affairs — even know that Kenya has been an independent country for half a century? Are they aware of the extravagant affair which is Kenya at Fifty celebrations and are they even being considered part of the celebrations on which the State is splurging billions of shillings? Chances are that some of them are aware of Nairobi’s plans, and are asking why, but no one is giving them any answers — a situation they are used to because their cries have been unheard and their needs have been unmet for 50 years. That is why they are, officially, marginalised. THE TRUTH ABOUT SYOKIMAU RAILWAY have faith in the government or its projects, Kenyans should never forget that governments are, by their very nature, always guilty until proved innocent, and Kenya’s successive governments have always turned out to be guilty as charged, if the amounts of public funds that have been lost in dubious projects are anything to go by. In November last year, when Syokimau Railway Station was opened, oh, and it was described using superlatives, I took a dim view of the hype around it and called it a bicycle park dressed as an ultra-modern railway station, much to the chagrin of the powers that be. Well, it is only fair to call a pistol a pistol and not a small submachine gun because that time will come when its efficacy will come into question after it has proved to be inefficient. And so it has come to pass that the railway station and its attendant moribund train service loses Sh50 million per month. That means Sh600 million of the public’s money has gone off-track in just one year. ...AND WHY KENYA AT FIFTY EXPOSES The Kenya at Fifty celebrations fever has gripped the country, and even though the skies will not fall if no big party is held, government officials sound extremely excited about the whole extravaganza. There are wags who contend that the billions of shillings being thrown down the drain could have been put to better use. It seems the festivities are in the dockets of all Cabinet Secretaries, who are falling over themselves to get hold of journalists’ microphones and talk about them, even when they have nothing to say apart from “Kenya at Fifty.” Last week, Hassan Wario, the CS for Sports, Arts and Culture, got a chance, and he was asked why the lion is the symbol for the celebrations. He said many things about the lion except the most important thing, which many Kenyans do not know, and which if he does not know, he should be embarrassed: The Lion is Kenya’s National Animal. Period. The rest are meaningless details which even lions themselves cannot pride.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 07:34:15 +0000
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