Do we get the leaders we deserve?

The first time I heard this argument, it was presented in such a compelling manner that I was convinced our leaders are a reflection of our values.

However, I am increasingly struggling to imagine what sins we could have committed that would be so grave as to land us in the space we are currently navigating.

Back in July, I watched a clip showing the looming drought that Kilifi was facing, as the population appealed for help.

Horrified, we watched as a mother fed her children the only thing she could lay her hands on, wild seeds.

This was the only source of sustenance they would receive that day.

The youngest offspring were nothing but skin and bones, malnourished and dehydrated, they just lay there, barely conscious to the world, among the hundreds of families suffering for no act of commission or omission on their part.

Three months later, and the full effects of the drought are starting to be felt.

Some 200,000 residents are reportedly affected and the county government needs Sh500 million to address the hunger crisis.

This calamity is reflected in about 12 other counties throughout Kenya, areas where water is scarce and food supplies running out and in some cases non-existent.

As if the horror stories are not enough, I heard that in some areas children are being sold for as little as Sh1,000 for food and so that they do not die. How can we sit back and for a moment imagine that we have a functioning country?

More than 1.3 million Kenyans are facing starvation, children and the elderly being the hardest hit.

The tragic part of this conversation is that year in, year out nothing changes. No policy implementation, no real effort in addressing food crises or fortifying stockpiles.

Our leadership continues to be reactionary even though we can predict with certainty that we will find ourselves in this space in 2017.

In the months while the country slid into despair and death, and an existence that gets harder with every passing day, grand schemes of larceny were being orchestrated behind the scenes.

Health workers in multiple counties downed their tools time and again citing failure of execution on agreements with the Government, leaving Kenyans stranded and with their lives hanging in the balance.

And then this past week we woke up to a nightmare of epic proportions.

Sh5.2 billion worth of funds meant for among others children’s vaccines, portable medical clinics for urban slums, free maternity medical care, TB treatments, food and rations was alleged to have mysteriously found their ways into pockets of the political elite I like to refer to as members of this country’s inner circle.

Enough money to save all the counties that are facing impending starvation and death and we can link it to a handful of individuals who consider themselves too important to work as hard as the rest of us do for a decent living.

And underlying all this, the kind of impunity and arrogance that we have become so accustomed to. That despite Kenyans' taxes being responsible for this sleaze, for paying the salary of the public servants tasked with fiduciary responsibility, they have the impertinence to turn around and vomit all over our shoes or as we like to say in Kenya literally ask us ‘mta-do?’.

Are we not angry enough? Well, those of us who still have the fortune of surviving on more than wild seeds and not facing the immediate threat of starvation. Are we not tired enough? How is it that we keep being hit, every single week, from every single angle by the same people over and over and we continue to plod and trudge and slog?

Are we truly willing to condone the scale of mediocrity in service provision and leadership that has become our lot without deciding enough is enough? To continue paying taxes that have nothing to show for them other than an increasing gap between the haves and the have nots, the former of which we will never be?

I completely reject the notion that we get the leadership we deserve. When we last went to the polls, we were overwhelmingly convinced that changing our voting habits would get us the change that we so desperately needed.

Do you recall why, for the first time, we considered technocrats and youth the perfect combination for effective leadership?

We also thought that if we voted in people who had had the opportunity to amass wealth on their own terms they would be less inclined to steal from us, that they would run the country professionally. How wrong we were. Apparently, greed knows no bounds.

There is one thing I know for sure. As long as we continue to condone the mediocrity that accompanies accountability in this country, as long as we the keep turning these conversations into political mud-slinging, this wretchedness will continue to be our lot.

It’s about time we said no to being held hostage by a handful of people who have none of our interests at heart.