Indifference to other people’s welfare rank high on our list of national values

The Sarit Centre in Westlands, Nairobi should teem with posters of apologies, because of ongoing construction and the attendant commotion. The ground floor and the parking area are pure madness. You don’t know how to get in or out. It is cement, dirt, mortar, clatter and all. But nobody considers that customers are owed even a polite pretext at contrition. After all they are expanding and sprucing up the place for your future good. What is a little inconvenience to the customer, even as sand and cement mess you up from all directions? What does it matter that the parking space is a confused labyrinth?

They are not alone, however. That is the bad news. We don’t know how to say sorry, in this country. We have been taught bad manners, from the cradle. The strong don’t apologise. Only the weak do. And those privileged to own malls are strong. They should not say sorry. That’s for poor folk. And so, elsewhere, I have come across people reconstructing foyers and lift areas in an ultra modern building in Westlands. By the time you have walked through the messy debris on the floor, you are ready to soil carpets of the offices you are visiting upstairs. But what does it matter? The owners of this place are sprucing it up. Those disturbed can jump into the sea.

This is a national attitude, a national value. Others don’t matter. Visitors at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport must suffer culture shock at the confusion occasioned by ongoing construction. This is yet another messy labyrinth. There is no apology, not a single guide to help you around. Elsewhere, motorists will often find sudden diversions on roads under repair or construction, without warning. You drive three kilometres, only to come to a dead end. The road is closed for repair. They are doing you a favour. They are reconstructing the roads for you. You ought to be grateful.

Rudeness and indifference towards other people’s welfare rank high on our list of national values. Impatience is another one of our esteemed values. You see it in the way we drive and in the courtesy on our roads – especially among the schooled people of Nairobi. The cream of civilisation in Nairobi is second to nobody in the entire world when it comes to rudeness, impatience and discourtesy on the roads. A lonely motorist trying to join the main traffic will wait forever, as suited rude gentlemen and overdressed ladies with red paint on their delicate lips and important sunglasses stare right ahead, refusing to give you way. If you try to edge in, they will hit you. They will come out of their second hand cars from Japan shrieking and waving fingers at you. Their painted red mouths will say unprintable things. The red lips are a warning of the fire in the mouth.

It is the national culture. We are a people with values in reverse gear. Even State House is in its element when it is in the reverse gear. It leads in reversals and negations. After all it is the high seat of power. Why should it not set the pace? We must therefore understand the Kenya Government’s attitude regarding the terror attack in Mandera last weekend, and on insecurity generally. President Kenyatta has told us to forget about his government securing the country. Our security is in our hands. If we don’t take charge of it, we should not hold his government responsible for the consequences. We should, accordingly, refrain from asking for the resignation of the grandees in charge of security in his government.

President Kenyatta is a true Kenyan in whom there is no guile. He tells it the way it is. You want security? Take charge of your own. For, the President has taken charge of his own security. He surrounds himself with hundreds of heavily armed men and women who move with him in armoured machines. He has spies allover the place, listening in to your phone and reading your text messages about your domestic affairs. His numerous homes and properties across the country are policed round the clock. Find your own solutions, the same way he has done. Earlier, as Kenya mourned, the President’s communications people posted images of a jovial President posing for photographs with fine-looking youth in far away lands. The country cried. The President smiled. He returned home to give us a dressing down on our misplaced expectations on security. That is the way it should be. For it is our privilege to have Kenyatta as our President, the same way we are privileged to shop at the Sarit Centre. If we do not like the Sarit Centre, we cam jump into the sea. If we do not like the way President Kenyatta has secured the country, we can jump from the 20th floor.

Both the President and his deputy have underscored their total confidence in the working of the two men Kenyans are asking to resign over insecurity. The Deputy President has even invented reality. He tells us we no longer need to worry about terrorists. The government killed all the one hundred of them, the very same night terrorists murdered 28 Kenyans.

Such is our platform of values at its most undisguised. We invent reality – or shall we say we are innovative? We communicate imaginary reality without batting an eye. We are a dry-eyed people, with dry-eyed leaders. Where other nations’ leaders would console bereaved families while others consider resigning in the name of honour, ours shout at our bereaved. They blame the victims for allowing themselves to be killed. For, we are privileged to have these leaders. We are privileged to pay taxes to them and to pay for their comforts.

Don’t forget, therefore, that it is rude to ask the President where he was as Kenya bled and wept. It is rude to ask your government why your taxes are unable to secure you. It is extremely rude to ask that State mascots should resign. You have been told clearly, people like Joseph ole Lenku and David Kimaiyo were not given the positions they occupy so that they could serve you. These are personal rewards to them for being politically correct, apart from coming from the right villages. Mr Lenku, you have heard, knows nothing about security. What did you expect him to do better than he has done?

Have you not heard that Lenku has done his best? After all he has no security background. What did you expect? A beggar on a horseback? Please, leave Lenku alone. Leave President Kenyatta alone, to watch motor sports and take fancy photos. Allow the President some space to play computer games in this digital age. Did you not hear he was going to put in place a digital government? Did you not ask for a digital team? Did you not know it is about playing computer games, posing for photos in military uniform and posting them on social media? Meanwhile, take care of your own security. Please walk with a bent head and a hunched back. Cave in your shoulders and step on the ground softly and tentatively. For, you are Kenyan. And have a safe weekend, if you can.