Kenyans should unite to fight graft as they have done against Covid-19

The novel coronavirus is rapidly spreading through Kenya and East Africa. It is changing the way we live our normal lives. It is inundating the health care system with new patients and expenses.

Let us pause for a moment and understand the definition of a virus. It can be defined as an infective agent that is able to multiple within the living cells of a host.

In addition, a virus is known to invade living cells to keep itself alive and replicate itself. Viruses are able to mutate themselves, which means that they can change slightly in different affected hosts, and keep on spreading. Viruses cause many well-known human infections, as well as rarer diseases. Either way, they are very hard to fight, and it is often even harder to find their source.

Covid-19 is a much more serious virus than any we have seen in our lifetime, and its spread is extremely hard to contain. Hopefully, and with the help of God, it will be eradicated efficiently and soon.

While all of our attention is focused on coronavirus, it is important that we do not forget other kinds of viruses that threaten our entire society with infection. The virus that I am referring to is another one that has spread far and wide throughout our country, that has proven to be unstoppable despite many years and many efforts to eradicate it.

That virus is corruption. Like coronavirus, corruption latches onto a host's body and multiplies. It can mutate itself to different forms in order to stay alive and keep spreading, and with a mere touch it can live for weeks and spread to other hosts.

Corruption works just like a virus because of how difficult it is to keep at bay and how harmful it can be to any affected community. Forget to wash your hands and rid yourself of it after one brief exposure to it and you might pass it along the chain.

Corruption has been passed down throughout multiple generations, like some kind of cursed legacy that we are unable to rid ourselves of, a bacteria that spreads with a simple under the table handshake and goes on through an unstoppable chain.

There are few in this country, except for a few elite leaders, that disproportionately benefit from it. Even though we know we are going to come into contact with it when we leave our houses, it does not keep us at home. We know that slipping bills to a police officer or a hospital official will make our lives a little easier in the short term. But in the long term, such actions enable it to spread, encourage those who take advantage of its easy proliferation.

But haven’t we all had enough? We should use this opportunity right now as we are all focused on the coronavirus to reflect upon the situation of corruption in Kenya and call for an end to it.

The president’s anti-corruption campaign has taken the first step, one step further than any other administration.

Corruption is now in the limelight, and government ministers are now beginning to understand that they cannot use their positions to make extra money and connect friends and family members to lucrative deals.

However, it seems that many of these efforts are being dampened by the judiciary, which frequently receives serious cases of corrupt individuals who are inexplicably let free.

While the executive investigates, arrests, and prepares cases, somehow the judiciary is not working in tandem. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they are the weak link of the anti-graft fight.

Due to Covid-19, we have been able to unite to eradicate the virus. It is time we considered doing the same thing against Kenya’s most long standing virus - corruption.

Let us all take part in anti-corruption campaign by refusing to take part in the vice.