Hundreds of youthful demonstrators match along Moi Avenue, Nairobi during the Anti-government protests on July 23, 2024.
This Kenya Kwanza government is currently on fire. On one hand, they’re struggling not to drop the ball on their way to the 2027 goalmouth, while using the remaining hand to hold off a billowing Gen Z movement in between fighting a surging Mpox outbreak.
Many countries would have already constituted a war cabinet to handle crisis communications by now – as for President William Ruto and his team of rivals, they’re still serving the Lord.
The 2019 census told us that Kenya is 86 per cent Christian and 11 per cent Muslim. If you remove the 61,233 who confessed they don’t know anything about religion, or the slightly less than a million who wanted nothing to do with its attendant chaos and confusion, you’re left with a country that worships anything that moves; for as long as it can convince you that Jesus is about to return to convince the Gen Z to listen to those who were chosen by His Father.
Running back to God when your house is on fire is actually a better strategy than that of breaking glass for a fire extinguisher that was last serviced before Jesus died on the cross – it not only saves your blood pressure from breaking the Richter scale, but it also moves the responsibility of shouldering blame to an unseen stakeholder who cannot be lynched since no one has ever returned to show us the scientific direction of heaven for Gen Z to occupy it.
The Bible says that God has too many eyes that can see your house on fire even before the first flame leaves the matchbox factory. It also says that when you call on Jesus, all things are possible – it should have come with a caveat (only when you know where to find Him).
For anyone to storm heaven and have showdown talks with God Himself, they will have to first crowdsource funds for a space shuttle that is fitted with a special spiritual compass with the discerning ability to locate the star which appeared for the three wise men during King Herod’s time. Either that or they will have to chill and wait for Jesus second coming, whichever comes first.
Problem is, this long-running vibe about being a God chosen government is no longer sticking on the wall, however much they throw it at those clamouring for transparency and accountability from those operating the levers of power.
You have heard this famous hadith in the Holy Quran about a Bedouin man who was fond of leaving his camel without tying it.
The Prophet (PBUH) asked him “Why don't you tie down your camel?” The Bedouin man answered naively while in his best behaviour, “I put my trust in Allah.” The Prophet then replied, “Tie your camel first, and then put your trust in Allah.”
This age-old lesson has taken time to sink into the hearts and minds of those driving government policy in the Kenya Kwanza regime, now a mishmash of different colours hoping to bring Kenya into one people.
Somewhere somewhat, someone is hoping that Kenyans will tie the Gen Z camel as they go around the country trusting in Allah. But hope is a dangerous drug – it’s the hope that eventually kills you.
A government policy hinged on hope for a brighter tomorrow is hopeless from inception. When your country is in a crisis and the only intervention you’re putting in place is going back to sell new promises at a local market near you, then it’s safer to say no lessons have been learnt and even God will have to step aside and wash His hands like Pontius Pilate.
Contrary to popular belief, Kenyans aren’t difficult to please. This false narrative about Kenyans has been sold for far too long by government bureaucrats who have neither the grasp of participatory development nor goodwill from the political class. Had the geniuses at Jogoo House mapped out the Armageddon that the New University Funding Model would bring and worked backwards to carry Kenyans along from the beginning, they wouldn’t be scrambling crisis communication teams to unpin their backs from the Gen Z wall right now.
Scientists have since discovered that there’s no harm in putting your hand up and asking the class to help you solve a difficult mathematical sum whenever your brain freezes due to bad weather.
It not only portrays you as a honest regime willing to admit whenever they stumble in the quest to nation building, but also helps you rally the nation in throwing their arms around you to protect the flag from joining the League of Failed States.
The philosopher who came up with the idea of convincing the government to always be reasoning together with the general public every time a new Bill is about to hit the streets knew the pitfalls of hoarding public information especially in the internet era where a tech savvy generation eats data for breakfast.
This university funding model was the easiest programme to implement seeing that it affects the generation that considers the internet as their natural habitat. The Kenya Kwanza government left their natural allies groping in the dark as they went around scouting for those who last saw the inside of a lecture hall when Kenya Airways was still making pretax losses. They invited this Higher Education Funding crisis on themselves with disjointed messaging.
Under normal circumstances, this Higher Education Funding cloud should have passed already and Kenyans moved to kicking Mpox out like Polio.
However, the government had to wait for the words of the education prophets to come true for them to cobble up something hoping to placate the affected families into lowering the contours that have been forming on their foreheads. It’s not late yet, but the damage is increasingly staggering back to the irreparable levels it was exactly two months ago.
It's true you cannot talk yourself out of a bad policy - it’s also true that a bad policy can still be separated from the bathwater before the drains are opened to empty the trough.
The Kenya Kwanza government managed to get the knife from the Gen Z in the nick of time before it fell on the yam.
With the uncoordinated approach to handling the negative press coming from botched government policy, the knife might find itself back to the hands that let it slip away and the yam will be back to trembling on the table begging for mercy.
