Make the changes when you are in power

 

President William Ruto during a joint session of Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at State House Nairobi. [PCS]

It’s become de rigueur for former senior government officials to dispense advice ‘from outside’, which would have been better dished out when they were part of the system.

We listened to some former CSs saying how corrupt the government they have been serving is; others saying they are happy to be out of a horrible system while others are lamenting that since they are no longer in power, nobody calls them!

And why should they? You can no longer dispense goodies from the ‘bottomless’ kitty. In that space, there are no permanent friends; just cronies to walk the corruption journey together. The good times are gone. The transient friends have moved on.

For those still in power, it should serve as a warning that their time is also coming lest they become too comfortable.

They should secure their legacy by doing the right thing and fixing the problems facing us while still in power.

It should be a lesson to all wannabe top honchos in government that when in power, it is a privilege that should not be abused but used for what it was intended for: to offer a public service to people. But these people are engineered differently. They only see the opportunity to make a difference when ejected from power.

Power is transient in nature, more so in Kenya. One day you are flying the flag on your fleet of state-of-the-art cars and in the next instant, you are just another motorist, jostling for space with Umoina Sacco matatus.

As a state employee, you should shun the trappings of power that give the impression you are God’s gift to mankind. All those cars and bodyguards running helter-skelter, tripping against each other in their haste to open doors for you are just there for now.

Those huge offices with red carpets and layabouts hanging around the corridors waiting on you, seeking favours: are the things that make some fellows mutate from respectable people into egotistical beings who lord it over others. Those hangers-on who never let go your sleeves, if only to appear on TV during those useless ‘development projects’ tours; should be shunned for the leeches they are, feeding on you.

They will be there for you, until you are dropped and those privileges fly out of the window.

In this country, to become a cabinet minister, legislator or a parastatal chief usually means the vaults to the safe have been swung open. And newly acquired wealth can also lead to some form of irrationality driven by the horrors of poverty in their earlier life.

We all saw certain politicians who could not be described as anything close to wealthy before they entered government engage in ‘flossing’ (to use common parlance) their newly found wealth.

That should make the electorate angry but in Kenya, it appears that wealth, especially ill-gotten, invokes some sort of worshipping from the electorate. It doesn’t matter whether your recent mode of transport was a bicycle but the moment you acquire gas guzzlers; the average electorate will bow down as if you are a deity.

I recently engaged with a stranger about the horrors of corruption and what it has done to this country. In the middle of the conversation, the young man mentioned a local politician who recently came into a lot of money and, in an admiring tone, said he had “come from nowhere and now look at him! He’s swimming in money.”

He reckoned that for most Kenyans, it is the opportunity to steal that doesn’t come our way.

A majority, including himself, would do exactly as the politician he was referring to did: they would steal anything not welded together.

That is the tragedy of this country. The reason the young man had these views – and he was freely sharing the same with a stranger – is that we rarely see corruption punished.

In fact, it is glorified and given a chance, we would propose them for sainthood for the miracle of turning air into riches.

The writer is a communications consultant and journalist