Sleeping Think Tanks in Kenya
Kenya is blessed with intelligent ladies and gentlemen from all walks of life. They sit in state house as aides to the president, the cabinet, the ministry of planning and development e.t.c. They are supported by researchers all over the country whose opinions influence policymaking at the mercy of the government of the day and parliamentarians that are age-mates with Jomo Kenyatta. Universities and policy research institutes around the country are busy holding workshops, conferences and seminars about the sun and the moon.
Forgive my naivety, but there seems to be a problem somewhere. Listen to the entire hullabaloo about how the economy can be improved and how Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from Multinational Corporations could take us all to heaven. My friends, now that the Bretton Woods institutions have started withholding cooperation with Kenya, we need to ask ourselves whether the lenses in our eyes know where our focus is. Yet I do not necessarily take the stand that we need the IMF and the World Bank. Let me discuss that later.
Take a walk along the Nairobi River and the Globe Roundabout and piles of rubbish will seduce your conscience with disregard of your disapproval. Walk around Naivasha town and just at the bus-stop happy cattle will greet you as they mingle with pedestrians in search of food in the rubbish. I agree Kenyans love animals and with the current drought the animals should enjoy freedom of movement in search of food. It is their constitutional right.
Even if the economy was to improve tomorrow, the economy will not walk around and clean our country. Kenyans, we need to take a bath. Before we even demonstrate against the rattled snakes, a demonstration against the environment degradation is missing in action and it has been for so long. Yet demonstrations are not solutions for everything though they are beautiful when a country breaks into song against poisonous snakes.
Forget about the investors and forget globalisation for a moment. Think about us and our children. We need to breathe clean air and clean water. We need to take photos around beautiful cities. Let us do it for ourselves. Us. Sisi!
Of course calling upon the solidarity of all hungry Kenyans to clean their homes and cities is too patriotic a call, so once more let me address those who are making important decisions in Kenya.
Firstly, all citizens are important decision makers by virtue of the votes in their wallets or kiondo if you like. So make a personal decision not to pollute our environment. Throw rubbish at the right places. If you can read this, then you are in a position to communicate the same message to fellow Kenyans. And your school children are Kenyans also. Socialise them well for the sake of Christ!
Secondly, you politicians and researchers that are paid by the taxes we pay to determine how to use them, may history judge you so bitterly for ignoring our environment. Thank you Professor Wangari Maathai, history has judged you in appreciation. And John Githongo, the ruling of the court of public opinion honours your courage and wishes you a warm and reflective stint in Oxford. Maj-Gen Hussein Ali, Kenya’s finest, may God give you strength.
Before you approach investors from God knows where, think about the investment you can make using the available money to implement revolutionary changes to the ever-present challenges facing us. As we feed our hungry and educate our children, the rubbish is pilling up and the day our economy improves, we might spend the surplus cleaning a depleted ecosystem, which will be dead by then.
I give you authority to dedicate taxes to doing this. If anybody asks you, tell them it’s me. A Kenyan that thought that it might probably be a noble idea to spend a lot of money on this.
Put stringent laws and by-laws in place against pollution and more to punish foolish pedestrians and motorists like you and me that make our cities dirty. Remember the by-law of Nairobi City Council? Yes, give them a new mandate and pay them well. Put laws in place to guard yourselves from the temptation of stealing money dedicated to this environment projects. Put laws in place that will cause the project managers not to steal money dedicated to the same.
Revolutionise your approach. Do not tell us the usual economy jump-starting jargon in talk-shows and explain all the theories under the sun. Those theories will continue existing, but the earth is getting hotter with the ozone depletion and the ice in the north is slowly melting and of course you have Katrina hurricanes as an example and the Philippines mudslides as food for thought. And by the way, when you talk to us on those TV-shows, please remember you are talking to an educated nation and not a schooled republic. We already know so much and God help you, if you think you can confuse our minds, spirits and souls.
Force the city councils to do their work. Prosecute them if they are corrupt. Demote them if they are lazy. Employ others and if they have no respect for their mandate, send them home anytime. Follow the law but spare them not the wrath that the coming generations will be burning with as they judge us all. Oh incentives! Pay them what they deserve and please pay them in time.
When you are an old man or woman, having sat in a think tank that actually won the argument and followed it with consistent action, you will be happy to depart to your sunset, having been an actor as well as a discusser. You will walk around and be glad Nairobi is clean. You will be glad your persistence to change Kenya’s environment actually took place.
So write those reports and research papers. Attend as many workshops and give public lectures about your specialisation. Feel good about your current position in government or those think tanks.
But may your soul never ever find peace if you are indeed in a position to influence revolutionary change in favour of our environment and you are not doing it. We elected you to deliver political goods to us but you are watching golf and meeting to divide oranges amongst yourselves.
May history judge you with contempt and may history books classify you as a liar and morally corrupt. May the children of our children forget your name and never mention it in public. May the writers of the future ignore your pretence to be a good politician or thinker. May your name elicit suspicion whenever one is renamed after you.
Thomas Jefferson, writing to Thomas Jefferson Smith on the 21st of February 1825 to give him some advice about life wrote “Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.”
God bless Kenya! For you dear think tanker, history will decide your blessing.
