Something foul is in the air and I am not referring to the novel coronavirus. Like Covid-19, if you come into contact with it, even from a distance, even without directly touching it, it will make you sick.
It also has a knack for crushing the economy and disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable. But unlike a new virus that we are being exposed to for the first time, this thing that plagues us in Kenya has been around forever. But it could also affect your health, if you arrive at a hospital in need of medical care and someone demands a bribe.
What is this mysterious malady that is ailing us all?
I am referring, of course, to corruption, perhaps the most damaging undercurrent of Kenyan society and politics since we gained independence. Bribery, graft, financial crimes, and everything that accompanies them, have been keeping us down and hindering our growth behind the scenes for decades.
In the immediate term, Covid-19 is the single most dangerous threat to Kenya’s overall economic and social well-being, but I do have some faith that it will not cause us to collapse entirely.
We are fortunate that President Kenyatta took very early steps to mitigate the virus’ spread as much as possible as soon as it reached us. As the government continues to monitor it, it is incumbent upon all Kenyans – whether elected officials sitting in parliament, police officers or ordinary civilians – to respect the regulations to the best of our ability. If we do so, the virus will not even come close to destroying us. The pandemic is something temporary and it will eventually pass. Scientists all over the globe are in a race to find the vaccine, and we hope it will be available to us all soon enough.
We will emerge from the coronavirus stronger, and perhaps, even more unified.
However, corruption is a different story. It did not permeate Kenya suddenly and thus far we have not had all hands on deck in our efforts to stop it. Rather, it seems that most of us have been complacent in letting it pass us by, and not doing enough to mitigate its spread.
In the most extreme cases, we have seen corruption at the highest levels of government steal billions of shillings from the national purse. Some scandals we just cannot forget – the Goldenberg affair under Moi for example, or more recently the National Youth Service Scandal.
And even after the NYS scandal, some of those with suspicious stories still continued to powerful positions. Just look at how the governorship of our capital, a highly influential, powerful and prestigious position, went to Mike Sonko, a man facing serious corruption charges.
There is only one way that Kenya will be able to overcome corruption, the longest lasting pandemic that our country has ever seen. As a nation, we have to make the commitment to rally behind the president’s anti-corruption campaign in the same way that we have collectively rallied behind the Covid-19 mitigation efforts.
It is not an easy thing for a nation so ethnically and linguistically diverse to support one unified cause. But many studies have shown that the majority of young Kenyans prefer to identify simply as Kenyan rather than by their tribe.
That is because we have common goals, and our clear eyed youth are starting to see through the smog clouding the vision of the old way of thinking. Anyone who is involved in shady dealings should meet the justice that they deserve. Anyone, irrespective of position or connections, who spreads the virus of corruption in Kenya should be imprisoned, and nothing less.
That is the fundamental end goal of the anti-corruption campaign. If we are able to follow government directives on physical distancing, then we should be able to act in the same spirit when fighting all threats to our collective well-being.
