When Mt Kenya leaders discuss alcohol abuse, do they interrogate themselves and find out who among them facilitates it?
The talks in Nyeri last week led by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua were healthy, considering the urgency of what is needed to salvage the young men and women wasting away due to “illicit brews” in the region.
But the leaders should have started with the existing laws, especially the “Mututho laws”. John Mututho put a lot of effort into trying to bring before Parliament rules and laws to control the liquor business and stop the sale of illicit liquor.
The results, now known as the “Nacada rules”, and which became an Act of Parliament, brought out the sharks in Kenya’s cut-throat business.
But the sustained retaliatory attacks that saw Mututho lose his parliamentary seat, led by some political leaders who control the beer industry and who now sit in the echelons of state leadership, is nicely documented. Some of those in Nyeri last week were the ones who fought the Nacada rules.
The government should critically and deeply view the bigger picture of why the youth are enmeshed in uncontrolled drinking. Most of them are desperate.
There are no jobs even for the highly qualified. Let the relevant officials engage them on a one-on-one basis and rethink the policies and the right path to bring this generation back to right path.
We will pass laws on the control of alcohol abuse.
This is okay in a stable society. However, the government ought to get effective ways and means of transforming the young generation into a very responsible one that can chart its way forward.
An idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and the government knows that.
It has the capacity to help the youth to reclaim their lives. They are the future.
