Exit Obama, it's back to business as usual

Just after US President Barack Obama took off in his Air Force One, a colleague told us: "From now on security begins with you!" He may have sounded like one of those stubborn pessimists Kenya is so generously endowed with, but then let us reflect on how fast we found our old foothold back.

In the evening, we saw TV cameras beam the return of street families, especially the scary boys who can skin a human being alive without flinching, to their usual hoods. Where they had been taken by security chiefs still baffles many, but one wonders: if they could keep and feed them there, why not make it a new way of life for the street families?

The other most unsettling thing is that we got to do this just because they were an eyesore and would have given a bad impression of us to the visiting Big Brother. The following day there was a bad traffic jam on Mombasa Road. After suffering for about an hour, a few metres from Panari Hotel, we found out why? A white lorry had stalled in the middle lane and right there it remained for hours.

Meanwhile, traffic was pushed back several kilometres because the blockage had choked the other lanes.

Yet all that was required was a road clearance or removal team, something that seems not to have occurred to Evans Kidero and his team despite numerous pleas by many Nairobians on the enforcement of simple things that would address the perennial traffic chaos that makes working and doing business in Nairobi as hard as in Calcutta.

Still on the relapse to our way of life before Mr Obama came around, on Wednesday four young men were lynched by a mob near the General Motors railway bridge. Police only came around when one or two of the young men were in the throes of death.

Again, maybe if the US marines were still around and the usual tight security ring around us had not been loosened, there would have been time for the police to rescue these guys and establish if they were indeed thieves-in-waiting or innocent victims of street 'justice'.

We were all glad that on Monday, at least our President, on his way to Ethiopia to join Obama at the African Union Summit, remembered he could access Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by helicopter to spare ordinary mortals the harassment and delays they are subjected to whenever he decides to have the clogged roads opened up to let him pass.

It was of course shocking to read that the grass patches that were put up along Uhuru Highway by Dr Kidero's team, as a last-minute effort to impress Mr Obama especially along parts of Mombasa Road and Uhuru Highway, were actually 'borrowed' and were removed on Wednesday.

Why are we saying all this? Yes, it may sound a repeat of what many Kenyans had joked about when the US president was here. Our Big Brother's visit made us stretch the limits of our hospitality and security enforcement, but then what is regrettable is that we relapsed to our old bad ways the moment he left.

Take the example of Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet; he was a happy man after Mr Obama left. He spoke proudly about the role his 'men' played in ensuring all went well, even hinting that there was indeed fear terrorists would strike during this time.

But then having good memory of Mr Obama's armoured vehicles, he ordered that anyone who owned vehicles with such inbuilt safeguards should park them immediately because the law prohibited them - unless they were cleared by his office or the taxman.

Well, that would be in order on one ground; if thugs acquire bullet-proof vehicles, our men and women from Kiganjo would have one hell of a time securing our lives. However, do also consider the fact that as things stand, we may have to follow President Kenyatta's wise counsel; that security begins with us. So if you don't trust State security as much as Boinnet and Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery do, what are you supposed to do? Sit like a lame duck?

And something else; the fact that the Americans pushed our own security, even the President's, to the periphery, can only mean they trust themselves more than they trust us. The question we should be asking ourselves is why? The answer of course starts and ends with corruption, poor equipment and demotivation. Even after Mr Obama left us with Sh9billion to boost our security and hunt down Al Shabaab terrorists, we might actually end up with the story of how the money was squandered or cannot be unaccounted for.

That would not be strange because as we speak, the Auditor General has reported that Sh67 billion just vanished like that from the accounts of ministries! Mental math would tell you this eclipses Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing! Jubilee mandarins will of course argue these are simple accounting queries and like at the National Youth Service, no coin was lost and that there was just an attempt to compromise passwords and steal.

So yes, some are definitely happy that Obama has left, leaving them to continue with their turn to eat! As things stand, being a Kenyan indeed requires patriotism and effort.