This week, the 50th day lapsed with Kenyan doctors on strike. This week seven Kenyan doctors #CB7 #CBASeven faced jail for standing for universal healthcare. This week, an article went viral.
The articles' author, Dr Eunice Songa, mother, mentor, anesthesiology resident at Kenya's largest referral hospital, KNH, passed on 27th of January 2017. Hours after she had joined Kenyan doctors in another trip to the courts pleading their case to the justice system not to subvert justice.
Alongside other Morans celebrated here: Nelson Mandela, Christopher Owiro aka 'Karl Max'; we salute you daktari. Fare thee well comrade! Here is the article....
A CALL TO ACTION: Wake up Middle and Upper Class Kenyans!
Let me take a few minutes of your time.
Kenya is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Opportunities abound for those
willing to work hard; the land where you can be born in a small village,
work hard and enjoy your lifetime in lush suburbs of Nairobi.
But we get caught up in that rat race don’t we? The never ending
pursuit to get a bigger, flatter TV, a smarter phone, a more expensive
car and holidays to those exotic destinations we see on our friends’
timeline. While we make sure our children are in elite private school
“A”, that our houses are on the right side of the CBD, while we are
sipping our 500 shilling mojitos with colleagues at the hottest after
work watering holes in the city, our beloved Kenya, our land of
opportunity is crumbling right around us.
We the lucky few in this country, who don’t earn anywhere near a
dollar a day, who have running water in our 3 bedroom apartments, who
can line up for terrific Tuesdays and fill our bellies with pizza, we
have become consumed by distractions. We are distracted by the
authenticity of Kim K’s derriere, by the attention seeking empty “debes”
on Nairobi Dairies, with odds and bets of Sportpesa, with the ever
juicy
udaku on Kilimani Mums and with hash-tagging our picture
perfect lives on Instagram. But while we have been obsessed with these
diversions, we have allowed our country to be governed, dare I say
dictated by a select few. The people we have entrusted with power have
decided to treat our beloved Republic as their own personal playground.
Do you Middle and Upper class Kenya really know your leaders? Sure we
know who our president is, Vice President, Governor, Senator….those are
easy; they are on TV every other day. But do you know what their
ideologies are as men and women or Kenyans or even as leaders? Do you
know what issues they stand for and what they fight for? Do you know who
your MCA is? Do you know what an MCA does? Do you know what the job
description of your Women’s representative is, or what the Governor in
your county is supposed to do? Have you thought about the devolution we
voted for, that was supposed to create county governments to
decentralize power and give that power to the people? But instead has
only given a good section of our leaders more opportunities to take what
they have not earned.
Let us look at the leaders we freely elected. My mind tries to
remember a time in my adult life, where corruption has been this
blatant, this audacious, this frequent and on such a massive scale.
Millions, billions, yes that’s Billion with a “B” disappeared seemingly
into thin air, in what we fondly like to call scandals. People that’s
your money, that’s my money! P.A.Y.E, V.A.T, Road Levies, your hard
earned salary, money from that chocolate bar you hurriedly pick up at
the supermarket, money from that new Toyota you just imported from
Japan, money from the cold beers your enjoy at your local
nyama
joint. We pay tax and you the middle class and the upper class pays the
largest part of it. You actually pay so much tax that the KRA collected
a record 1.001 Trillion…yes that’s Trillion with a T, in the financial
year 2014/2015. Yes…a trillion shillings. Yet somehow our potholes get
bigger with every rainy season, our biggest national referral hospital
has patients with broken limbs sleeping under the bed, our public
primary schools are still waiting for laptops that were promised and
millions of Kenyans, even in urban areas have no access to clean running
water.
But hey we know these problems right? They are plastered across the
dailies: “Doctors strike again!” “ 2.5 Bn shillings scandal in Ministry
of “take your pick”” “KCSE exams leaked!” “Security at all time low in
Kenya!”
What do you really feel when you read those headlines? I won’t lie, I
am guilty of it as well. You mumble that this country is going to the
dogs, you skim the article to keep informed and have something to say
during polite conversation and continue flipping through the newspaper.
So when billions of shillings disappear, money that we break our backs
to earn, why aren’t we up in arms about it? Why aren’t outraged, enraged
by these scandals? Why isn’t there a fire burning inside of you when
you realize the people you put in charge of the well being of your
beloved Kenya do not measure up and are in fact draining us of the
little we have.
Why is that countries like, Denmark, Canada and Sweden are ranked the
least corrupt in the world, while Kenya always seems to make to the top
20 or top 50 most corrupt, in good company of failed states and
dictatorships?
If 2.5 billion dollars went missing in Canada, there would strong
public outcry with demonstrations demanding answers and those
responsible would be swiftly brought to justice. Are the Canadians or
the Danes better than Kenyans in anyway? Are they more honest or are
they more moral than we are? That’s definitely not the case. They simply
hold their leaders to a much higher standard. Because if you decide to
take a job as a public servant, your moral character must be
incorruptible.
But in Kenya we brush off corruption as another day in Kenyan
politics. Or worse still we blame the 40% of Kenyans living on less than
a dollar a day. It’s them…the poor who are many, right? They are the
ones who vote for these corrupt individuals based on tribal lines or
because they were bribed. It’s them, the uneducated masses who elect
these rotten leaders.
Why don’t we try and put ourselves in their shoes for just an instant
shall we? Less than a dollar a day, that’s less than 100 bob a day;
just try and imagine that. Your KFC 3 piece meal is what they earn in a
week to feed a family of 4. Mama Mboga and the Roast Maize guy will go
hungry on most days. They share a one bedroom mabati house in Kibera
with their spouse and kids. It’s a house that has no running water or
indoor plumbing. Mama Mboga stands for hours in a queue to fill her
mtungis
with water from the pump in the middle of the plot. When her kids are
sick, she stands in line for hours at Mbagathi or Kenyatta National
Hospital if she has the
matatu fare to get there. Her kids go
to the public school squeezing 2 or 3 to a desk in tattered uniforms
trying to understand what Teacher Grace is saying above a din of 50
other students chatting and giggling. The Roast Maize guy works 7 days a
week, rain or shine, Christmas, Idd, Mashujaa Day he works to take home
that one dollar every day.
So do you think this guy and the millions like him will turn down the
500 or 1000 shillings thrown around during the election season to
persuade voters? Or hang on every lie that the corrupt official from his
hometown spews at the rallies in his area? In fact that 1000 shillings
will feed his family for a month and he will even be able to buy more
maize to roast. He lives day by day and the future is a luxury for him
and his family. How can you and I blame him for picking corrupt leaders,
when all he can think about is how to feed his children? How can we
call him backwards and part of the uneducated masses that elect rotten
apples when he starves so that his children can go to the hospital?
So what about the guy who is a little better off; the one who earns
100 dollars a month like your house-help, the supermarket attendant or
even the Kenyan police? They may not be literally starving, but they are
living hand to mouth every single month. They give birth in KNH and
share the blood stained single bed with two other women because
maternity care was made free by the government but the hospital didn’t
get more beds. They can’t afford secondary school for their teenagers.
They may not be able to make rent this month because Cucu’s arthritis
was flaring up again and so they had to send money back home. Then we
ask how it is that the policeman asks for a bribe or the public school
teacher gives illegal tuition.
Then there’s you and me; we sip our French vanilla lattes on the Art
Caffé terrace and cheer our favourite Premier League time while enjoying
cold beers at our local neighbourhood joint. Our children in perfectly
pressed uniforms get on the school bus. And we complain about the 1 hour
wait at Gertrude’s or Aga Khan because little Kevo has a stuffy nose
for the 3rd time this year. We enjoy our weekends at Garden city,
T-mall, Sarit Centre and Westgate filling our bellies and our Nakumatt
baskets.
So what excuse do WE have to give? We voted too! What’s our excuse
for tolerating ineptitude, corruption and outright malevolence in the
name of leadership? Our stomachs are full, when we are sick we see a
doctor in an hour, our children learn music, ballet and karate in their
free time, we spend Easter at the coast and we have people working in
our homes at our beck and call…. What’s our excuse?
Why are we the middle and upper class so apathetic when it comes to
politics and governance? The point is not to feel guilty about having a
good life. I don’t feel bad about it, so why should you? You wake up at
the crack of dawn, fight through Nairobi traffic, deal with bills and
bosses, deadlines and proposals, loans and losses. Why shouldn’t you
enjoy the trappings of success? Those fun idle distractions are
necessary but they shouldn’t blind you to what goes on in the real
world. That enjoyment and celebration should not make you complacent to
issues affecting your country. Many of us say: so what am I supposed to
do about it? How can I change what is happening? I don’t have any power!
The first step out of complacency is to give a crap. Put down your
caramel mocha latte macchiato, turn off the latest episode of Empire or
the Real Basketball Housewives of Hoesville or Game of Thrones, stop
scrolling down those funny cat memes on Instagram and actually give a
damn. If you don’t care that patients in the biggest referral hospital
in East and Central Africa has 26 ICU beds for a population 40 million,
then what change can you really bring about? If you don’t care that
there are parts of our country where people are literally starving to
death or the doctors are still on strike after 2 months or that there
are schools without desks or chairs then how can you change anything?
The second step is to be informed. You cannot attack a problem that
you don’t know about or understand. Who can name all the Kardashians but
can’t your name the MCA of your area? Who follows Huddah and Vera on
social media but couldn’t pull the Prinicipal Secretary of Health or the
Environment out of a line up? Don’t be ashamed, that’s a good number of
us. Do you know what an MP does? Do you know the difference between the
Parliament and the Senate? Do you know the candidates vying for
Governor of your county? What’s their track record? What are their
successes? What are their failures? Do they have scandals attached to
their names? Google is your new friend. We should stop voting for
leaders because they are our tribesman, or because they come from a
certain region in the country. Start small with your ward, your
constituency and find out who are the leaders of the area and the
problems affecting where you live. Find out where the candidates in your
area stand on the issues that affect you. And then read up on national
problems, from those perpetual scandals where a technocrat wanders off
with 5 billion shillings and doesn’t see the inside of a court room to
the drought, famine, HIV prevalence, land grabbing, insecurity, gender
inequality and illiteracy affecting millions of Kenyans.
The third step is to figure out what you are passionate about. What’s
going to be your cause? What is your fight about? This I feel is where
I’ve reached in the “get my head out of my rear end” program for Middle
and Upper Class Kenyans.
I want to inspire and motivate those who are cosily wrapped in the
blanket of comfort of “it’s not my fight” of “what can I do?” and tell
them to get up! You have a post-secondary education, you have a job and
you have internet access…start there! If you want to know why condoms
are free in public institutions but disadvantaged girls in your
constituency or anywhere in Kenya for that matter don’t go to school
because they have no sanitary pads then put your Women’s Rep to task via
social media and ask why how her and her 46 elected counterparts in
almost five years were not able to offer a program of free sanitary pads
or the equivalent for girls and women in their counties.
“Kenyans on Twitter/KOT” is a well-known phenomenon; remember CNN’s
“Hotbed of Terror”, we even got an apology for that. So “hash tag” the
hell out of your cause, until the MCA, the Senator, and the Women’s Rep
has no choice but address your issue.
#AskYourGovernor: Why are Nairobi doctors on strike because they haven’t been paid for 6 months?
#AskMCA Ann: Why is the huge, dangerous pothole at the roundabout
near X Shopping Centre not been fixed yet, when Y amount was set aside
this year by the county to fix roads.
#AskMrPresident: Why haven’t the culprits who stole 2 billion of our hard earned tax money, not been identified and prosecuted?
Now imagine 10,000 hash tags a day, to a 100,000 hash tags a day, our
causes, our issues and our problems remain at the forefront, in the
conscious minds of everyone. Serious problems won’t become yesterday’s
news because each problem has a champion or a group of champions making
sure that we all remember that somewhere in our country people are
suffering.
This is important because we who can, we who have a lot, can help
those who have nothing. We can no longer blame the ones who are broken
and down trodden. We can no longer blame the ones who live each day as
it comes. We must use our hard earned privilege to fight for them and
fight for us. If we had a government that put its people first, there
wouldn’t be a need for “their Mbagathi” and “my Nairobi Hospital” or
“their matatu” and “my Uber”.
Life isn’t easy, even with our corporate jobs, our side hustles, the
nice apartment, trips to Dubai; life is hard. But if you won’t tolerate
stealing in your home or where you work, why do we sit back and allow
our leaders to take what you break your back to earn and allow them to
go scot free? And worse still, spend it and use it to run for even
higher political office so they can come back for seconds!
We, the middle and upper class pay most of the tax but why don’t we
demand quality service? In advanced countries the poor, the middle class
and the rich use public transportation and use publicly funded
hospitals. Instead of KNH or Mbagathi, we go to Coptic or Metropolitan
or MP Shah. Instead of demanding for quality education in our public
schools, our kids go to private ones. Instead of raising hell why our
water quality is poor, we spend thousands on bottled water. We should
demand better use of our taxes.
The last step is to go and do something. You don’t have to be the
next Boniface Mwangi dogding tear gas canisters. You just go and make a
well-educated, well researched vote. You convince your spouse, your
neighbour, your co-worker to go out and make an educated decision. Find
an expert in your cause, or a champion who has fought for that cause
longer than you have. Ask them what can I do to help, what can I do to
leave my mark? We can inspire a generation of “do-ers”. And perhaps from
that generation can come leaders who know their people inside and out.
Leaders who are compassionate, well informed with realistic ideas for
long lasting solutions to our problems.
So it’s true that hash tags, “KOT” and Facebook posts alone won’t
solve our problems in a day; but it’s a start. We may not have the
courage to march to parliament, or fight riot police and physically
protest for a better country, but we can still fight. We can stop being
accomplices in the systemic pillaging and destruction of our beloved
country. If our leaders fail to perform, we will highlight their
shortcomings and be their judge, jury and executioner on Election Day.
We are after all the privileged masses; because never has Kenya been
more educated, more tech savvy and with more potential than right now.
Don’t waste it.
Stand up and be counted in a new revolution. A new Mau Mau movement,
not to fight a foreign master who enslaved us, but to fight the
inequality, the injustice and oppression that a few Kenyans enforce on
us in the name of totalitarian leadership. The new Mau Mau revolution
will take our country back from the men and women who fear neither
retribution nor repercussions to their actions.
And finally to our dear leaders, who too are part of the Middle,
Upper and their self-made “Upper Upper” class. Consider this your
notice. We are tired of impunity, nepotism, the ransacking of our
resources, and your indifference to your fellow citizens’ suffering. We
say “No more!” We want leaders who put our interests and well-being
first and their pockets second. We want leaders who take pride in their
positions and use their power to inspire and create rather than trample
on and destroy. You are after all civil servants; you work for us. Our
taxes pay your salary. And just like any job, you are accountable to
your employers. If you want our vote, give us facts and figures and show
us your track record. Do not woo us with the usual tribal rhetoric and
empty promises of a better tomorrow. Just because I am from your tribe,
even your village, does not automatically mean you deserve my vote. Give
us informative political debates where you discuss the issues that
affect our country instead of the mudslinging and cock strutting that
invades our TV screens on the nightly news. We will not fall for the
sweet nothings you preach to us during election season, which you
conveniently forget when you get elected.
For the old guard…your time is up. Evolve and mature into the leaders
the Kenyan people deserve. If you don’t, it will be at your own peril,
because the new Mau Mau revolution is coming and we have our eyes firmly
set on the enemy.
#Maumaurevolution#wakeup #Kenyaelections2017#chooseyourleader #fightforyourcause#saveKenya
This article was first published on
thenewmaumaurevolution