Haron Wachira

We all know what is wrong…

Listening to our Kenyan radios, I am puzzled that so many people seem to know exactly what is wrong with Kenya — why hunger haunts Turkana and other marginalized areas frequently; that every roadblock on our roads is a bribery toll station through which speeding matatus pass every minute kill over 3,000 people a year; that politicians simply buy the vote that gives them a ticket to parliament so they can pass primarily bills that pay them super salaries; that, until Matiang’i, majority of the country’s ‘top performing’ kids in our schools were buying exams!

Not only that, we also know exactly what the government did wrong to get our country into a food shortage situation. We also know what they should have done. ‘They’ should have planned. ‘They’ should have bought and stored the maize from last year’s harvest at a better price.

That said, our drought situation is cyclical, so we can easily anticipate another one in another four or so years….. Our roads kill more people every year. The police force emerges as the top most corrupt institution in all reviews every year (and attracts more and more young recruits every year). And the Member of County Assembly (MCA) elective position, and that of governor – the two positions with the most ‘eating’ potential, have ended up becoming the most competitive.

Our problem is precisely that. We know. We talk. We criticize. But we do not DO. Some people, elsewhere, know that they will go through a winter. So they store up for it. They build barns for their animals. They keep their road maintenance crews ready. They hardly ever talk about it. If we had to go through a winter, my fear is that we would know it will kill our people and we would watch it do so every year without doing anything about it. In Israel, they know that most of their country will always be dry… so they research and implement alternative ways of growing crops, for example, without soil (hydroponics). They save up their rain water. They cool their animal’s sheds. They also know that their neighbours hate them and therefore build up an arsenal large enough to keep their enemies at bay.

Us?  Well, sad to say this, but I am confident that we will most likely remain reactive: holding incredible fund raisings through mPesa AFTER drought starts to decimate our northen neighbours. We react. We do not seem able to plan ahead and execute a strategy in normal mode. It seems we must have  a crisis in our hands to act…to stir up mass action. We are good at raising money when we flag up a jigger-ridden village; when we have a dead body that left a bill in a hospital; when hunger kills and frail bodies are shown on our TV screens….but we do not know how to act in anticipation , for example, to mobilise a community towards enacting an insurance package to cover medical bills.

If this is of any comfort, let me point out that we are not entirely alone in our profiling. Most people around the world buy shares when the price is already too high! Many NGOs all over the world raise money (mostly to fund the lifestyles of the managers) by appealing to emotions — describing and showing videos of Africans in desperate situations….But we, in Africa, seem especially vulnerable to the lack of planning illness. We wait for our roads to break down completely before we start repairing them. We let our traffic build up to the point of no use at all before we begin to expand. Even in day to day operations,  much of our traffic jam happens because we all want to arrive at work last minute. Our better schools are jammed because we will not want to invest (too long) in another school. We have had to completely run down the railway line we inherited from the British 100+ years ago, never adding a kilometre…well, until UhuRuto’s Standard Gauge Railway (thumbs up!)

Okay, Kenyans, enough of that. Let’s now take stock. We know how to talk.  Let’s  now start learning to do.  We also know that we fail because we do not forward plan, so let’s start learning to anticipate and plan: At a personal level, for example to improve your financial management capacity or to learn a new skill, or to change a habit; at a community level, to improve the neighbourhood or identify and assist the needy and at a national level (if you are in a position of authority) to institute a Matiangi-Prof Magoha like change in the section, department or organisation that you are in charge of!