Here's why we need to pray for our country

Without doubt, Kenya is a country at a crossroads. The euphoria that greeted the Jubilee government's election in 2013 has dissipated and all that remains are bitter recriminations.

Our politics remains corrupt, our democracy grossly imperfect. The high hopes of 2013 have been dashed by the turn of events for the worst, leaving Kenya a country in dire need of divine intervention. On issues critical to the country,the Executive has dithered, the Legislature have squabbled. Generally, the mood of the country is that of hopelessness, despair.

Lately citizens have been treated to the spectacle of Jubilee parliamentarians traversing the country in the guise of holding prayers for Deputy President William Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang, who are facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Rather than unite a country divided by bad politics and negative ethnicity, the prayers have succeeded in achieving the opposite; by evoking bad memories that would have been better left in the past.

Borrowing a leaf from Zambia, which held national prayers for the country at the prompting of President Edgar Lungu yesterday, Kenya needs serious prayers, not just for the political elite pushing for self-preservation, but for every single Kenyan in dire need of one thing or another.

Of late, Kenya has become a country characterised by strikes. Doctors, nurses and teachers have been on strike, holding the country to ransom. Some judges of the Supreme Court are on a silent strike, protesting a Judicial Service Commission they claim has become imperial and over bearing. Governors have their hands tied, unable to execute their functions for lack of finances, which the National government has not remitted for three months. Schools have not been able to even procure examination material because the Government had failed to disburse capitation funds in good time.

The country's economy is in the red with the Government unable to meet its objectives from an overambitious budget. There is the fear that the country has, like Greece before the rupture, defaulted on IMF loan repayments for at least two months. Frantic borrowing from local banks to cover a budget deficit of Sh600 billion has pushed up bank interest rates, making it unbearable for those who need personal loans.

Cases of incest, rape and sodomy are on the increase. Marital woes are almost becoming commonplace, even as the church goes rogue. Clergymen have become extortionists; using the word of God to fleece unsuspecting congregants to enrich themselves. Church leaders have gone as far as fighting and killing opponents inside churches and on church compounds over leadership wrangles.

Politicians who are supposed to be a unifying factor are competing to tear the country apart through inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated claims that inflame tribal passions. Tribalism has been the country's bane since independence but rather than fight it, politicians are busy entrenching it. When they call each other Princes' of poverty and high priests of corruption, the inevitable outcome is hatred of fellow countrymen.

Many Kenyans are going hungry today because of poor Government strategies, lack of clear cut policies and endemic corruption, especially among the political elite who preach water and drink copious amounts of wine. The impending El Nino phenomenon is likely to worsen the situation as it is predicted it will cause untold havoc unless adequate preparations are made to counter the effects.

There is little hope and no promise for Kenyans as things stand today, unless we turn to serious national prayer that God may redeem us from the precipice on the edge of which we are dangerously tottering.