Shame of tragedy-driven nation that loves politics

We live in a country defined by tragedy but our love affair with politics has turned chronic, it continues unabated.

Death, induced by malfeasance, has become a national pastime. If it’s not about the heart-wrenching ordeals of innocent primary school pupils and hopeful university students dying due to collapsed classrooms and

terrorism respectively, it’s the marginalised masses having a date with their maker because of debilitating starvation.

Bitter jobless youths are sorrowfully plodding about the Nairobi traffic cursing the day they were born. Some have thrown in the towel and committed suicide while others have joined in wreaking havoc on the nation

through crime unfazed by the cries and agonies of their victims.

One can be forgiven to believe that anything and anyone in Kenya has the potential of being a death-trap. In our buck-passing nature, we have blamed all manner of people for our misfortunes except the tribal and

ravenous political elite because we don’t want them, and our communities, to appear bad and dim their stab at the presidency. We started by heaping blame on “half-baked” university graduates, then humanities and

social sciences, then a lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the youth, then examinations cheating, then the high number of universities and the 8-4-4 system. Today we are even blaming millennials, socialites and slay queens.

It’s only in Kenya where a politician has the gut to tell a gathering that incessant politicking is taking us back without looking at the mirror. How, for instance, are millennials responsible for the hellish experience

Likoni ferry victims went through?

We all know that every government institution since independence including the Transport ministry, under which the Kenya Ferry Service (KFS) is, has been under the command of the Generation X and Baby

Boomers, who land those positions due to political patronage and tribalism. You don’t blame the lack of entrepreneurial culture on preventable deaths like that of Ms Mariam Kaghendu and her little angel, Amanda

Mutheu. Had the billions allocated to the KFS been in invested in rapid response and skilled divers, such a horrifying incident would not have occurred. Ours is a country where billions would rather be looted and

stashed abroad than be spent on meaningful national initiatives. We have cultivated the belief that anyone who does not loot is the proverbial Luo wife of Ong’ong’o.

How regressive can a country be? It is crystal clear that as long as Kenyans elevate tribal chieftains and their henchmen above God, we will continue to pay the price of inept leadership.