Ours is a peculiar nation and that is not news because we have always known so but we downplay it.
Long before one foreigner got exasperated and declared that Kenyans have peculiar habits, we were aware but we could not say or admit so publicly.
Our inability to admit that we have certain despicable tendencies extends to several aspects of our lives and affects our country even as we complain about this big monster called the government and our representatives, for shortchanging us.
This government did not happen to us by mistake. In as much as we all want to distance ourselves from the foibles of the current administration, a majority of us as per our statutes elected it.
The same goes for these other people we so love to hate, our representatives at all levels of political governance. We chose them and we cannot blame the electoral agency for any irregularities since it exists with all its flaws because we have allowed it to.
It is an open secret that our elected representatives are sinfully corrupt or are drivers of corruption. They know it and no matter how many times they shout that they want to end graft, they cannot because they are the biggest beneficiaries of underhand deals.
But we never question them when they come to us with the loot. In fact, we consume the loot, which in essence, is just our money that they have stolen.
Afterward, we complain about poor service provision or lack of services and deliberately forget that we play a big role in creating the mess.
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We complain loudly about stolen public funds, but when politicians come to us with money, we lose our dignity and senses. We elect those who throw money at us during the campaigns, but we never ask how they will recover it when they win.
It is easy to say that we should stem the rot, but we are so deep in the abyss of corruption and we seem to lack the heart and the drive to climb out of it.
The sad part is that our elected representatives know that we are part of the rot and we too happy with the crumbs they give us after they have looted public coffers.
It is so clear to them that we are fools so much so that they are not ashamed to declare that they receive bribes as it happened early in the week when an MP announced to the whole world that they were bribed to vote in a certain way in Parliament.
In other climes, the authorities and the voters would on his neck, but here, we laughed it off because it has become our lifestyle.
It did not even prick our conscience that the single incident he mentioned proves that such underhand deals are the order of the day in the legislature and that Parliament is the temple of corruption.
