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| Kenya's heart |
When the courts remanded one Waititu on Thursday (27th September 2012) following his remarks in
Kayole, Kenyans’ hearts gave a unanimous rousing ovation to the much hyped
‘judicial reforms’ that is maturing presto.
The social medial went frantic on Chief Justice Will Mutunga’s decisive
leadership in the Judiciary taking center-stage in the fight against impunity and
political lawlessness. Surely, the three
lives lost indecently due to the reckless statement, must be impressed, smiling
at the judiciary determination of turning around this country. The legal action against Waititu served as a
precedent to dissuade other culprits of his ilk from polarising the
citizenship.
Unfortunately, that is where our jubilations
ended and the worries began.
Given the still lingering bitter-taste in
our mouths after the 2007/08 pandemonium, and given we are approaching a
similar time in the history of Kenya, what we have witnessed in Kilifi, Tana,
Mombasa and Kisumu in the past few days is frightening and painfully so even by
the deplorable standards that has always governed this country. Therefore, such primitive and archaic
incitements, harmless as they may appear to the literate, lethal they may be to
the illiterate lot out there and should never ever be entertained anywhere on
the Kenyan soil. Later, releasing Waititu on a just 1 million bail
was an insult to Kenyans, to the lost lives, and a tell-all of how in Kenya,
murder, whether in first or second or third degree, is an obvious thing, can be
denied and easily bailed out with a few affordable millions. What a fragile rule of law.
As a concerned citizen, and a peace-loving
youth, the worrying trend is that the disguised vengeance in poverty,
unemployment, drug abuse, tribalism and illiteracy in our youths is boiling up
really hard snowballing by the day into a nasty time-bomb awaiting ‘sparking
plug’ from Waititus of this world. What
if he was not caught on camera? What if
a senior police was not beside him on the scene? We could be still baffled the same way we
have done on Tana River massacre so far.
This is bound to happen again because it is
happening again. Kisumu town, with its
fair share of tribal troubles, is equally spiralling out of control with the
emergence of two youth gangs: Chinese Squad (for TNA in Nyalenda) and American
Marine (for ODM Kondele), all a spin-off of Baghdad Boys (Jeshi la Mzee), a
proscribed group that has been terrorising Kondele junction along a trunk road
opening Western Kenya and leading to almost all dormitory suburbs in the town.
The perpetrators, the schemers and the
financers of the erstwhile gang are yet to be identified and dealt with maybe
after we have butchered one another once more (God forbid!). Right or wrong rumour has it that the new
group members are swearing they must loot as they admire the looting that
occurred in 2007.
The chilling message is that these kinds of
militia, having not been demobilised so far, seem to have multiplied with newer
formations and bull-headed stamina in a menacing rate. That itself is worrying but what aggravates
the matter is when the police have all indications that they have been
overpowered, overwhelmed and downtrodden.
If I were the PPO I could suggest a curfew to idlers along Kondele,
Nyalenda and Bus Park at least to put this groups under check, I could also
crackdown the already known culprits. But any junior-most police officer will
tell you even the PPO is only available in Kisumu in very few limited days.
The rapidity of occurrence of criminal
activities by such groups compounded by a whimsical whiff of concern or
conscience from political leaders and a frail robustness of counteraction by
national security agencies usually result in massive destruction of properties
or loss of lives. In such cases, then,
we are stuck as a nation, and we have stuck tragically in the wrong end. In deed this is a tragedy of our nation, a
nation cursed with a clues government, a government that could watch her
citizens languish or even die in the hands of crooks without even blabbering
for a massive emergency response. Is it
true the government doesn’t know itself?
Even the political leaders pointing fingers at the government? Who is he/she anyway?
As they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Alphonce
As appeared in local dailies
