When crisis becomes feast for privileged few

Motorists and motorcycle operators in Naivasha queue at New NNUS petrol station seeking fuel following an acute shortage in and around the lakeside town. [Antony Gitonga, Standard]

There is an old tale of a village where a few traders controlled the only well. In times of peace, they sold water at a fair price. But whenever distant thunder rolled across the hills, signaling storms far away, they would quietly lock the well at night, dilute what remained, and reopen at dawn with higher prices. The villagers, long accustomed to hardship, would grumble, pay, and move on. Over time, this became the order of things: the many clutching the short end of the stick, the few polishing theirs into a staff of power.

Kenya today risks becoming that village. For too long, Kenyans have endured a system where exploitation is routine, resurfacing whenever opportunity arises. The tensions in Iran should have remained a distant concern, yet they became a convenient excuse locally. Some, ensconced in posh offices, seized the moment to hoard fuel, import substandard products, and manipulate supply for profit, while others simply hiked prices.

This is not merely market behavior; it is systemic failure dressed as enterprise.The real tragedy is not just the act, but how predictable it is. Kenyans have seen this before, crises becoming opportunities for profiteering, with the well-connected feasting while ordinary citizens bear the cost.

Worse still is the familiar outcome, accountability rarely reaches the top. Small fish are punished for show, while the big fish remain untouched. It is this culture of selective accountability that erodes public trust.

The responsibility to break this cycle cannot be outsourced. The man sitting in the house on the hill must recognize that these are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a deeper rot. Turning a blind eye, or responding with half measures only emboldens those who view crises as profit margins. Leadership demands more than acknowledgment; it demands decisive, even uncomfortable, action.

There is also a warning embedded in the village allegory. One day, the villagers grew weary. They stopped lining up quietly. They began to question, to organize, and to demand fairness. And when that moment came, the traders discovered that power, once taken for granted, can just as easily be reclaimed.

Kenya stands at a familiar crossroads. It can continue normalizing a system where the short end of the stick is passed from one generation to the next, or it can finally demand that the stick be held evenly. Until then, every distant storm, whether in Iran or elsewhere will not just shake global markets, but expose, yet again, the fault lines within.