First, let us be grateful for small mercies; only six fatalities had been recorded, at time of writing, from Thursday night’s gas explosion in Nairobi’s Embakasi area.
The scale of the inferno in a crowded residential area could have, if not for extremely good fortune, resulted in dozens, if not hundreds, of casualties. There are still about 300 people injured, with a number in hospital being treated for life-threatening burns, so the death toll could rise. Many will also be left scarred for life, suffering physical and psychological trauma and facing loss of livelihoods and shelter following destruction of their houses, business premises and properties.
These are all matters that call for immediate attention, even as we seek for answers for that blazing inferno. The owners of the illegal cooking gas cylinder refill operation must of course be held directly and personally liable for death and destruction on war-zone scale. Alongside the operators — who obviously are the face of impunity having run that illegal outfit in brazen defiance of all laws, regulations and previous official sanctions and prohibitions — are a whole chain of government agencies that by acts of commission and omission must also be held directly accountable.
We have so far seen a lot of buck-passing, obfuscation, diversionary statements, excuses and everything else from a slew of bureaucrats out to evade culpability.
They cannot be allowed to get away with it. Senior officials and boards of the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) and the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) all share a big part of the blame, either for issuing suspect operating licences, or for failing and neglecting to halt operations of a clearly illegal and dangerous facility.
The local police commanders, Nairobi City County Government inspectors and national government administrative officers cannot escape blame too. They must have been aware of an illegal operation taking place right under their noses, but, this being Kenya, most likely trooped to the facility every evening to collect bribes so they could look the other way. It will not be enough to hold officials at the local level to account. When it comes to fixing broken systems, we must recognise that the rot starts from the top.
The Cabinet secretaries for Interior and Energy, Kithure Kindiki and Davis Chirchir respectively, cannot escape censure for dereliction of duty and gross failings under their dockets. Neither can Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja nor Inspector-General of Police Japhet Koome. All bear a level of responsibility and must be called to account. When President William Ruto vowed that government officials found guilty of dereliction of duty leading to the tragedy will be sacked and prosecuted, we trust he meant a crackdown will start with the management and directors of the various ministries, departments and agencies, not just the petty bureaucrats, inspectors and paper pushers. He must also look at himself as head of an administration that is almost irredeemably broken and dysfunctional, and demonstrate whether he is part of the solution, or part of the problem.
Finally, we must all as Kenyans look inwards at ourselves. It is very simple to demand accountability on part of government when things go wrong. But we are also part of the problem. We willingly elect to high office known thieves, scoundrels and incompetents, and then feign outrage when they act to type.
We have resigned ourselves to leadership by the most unsuitable people in politics, public service and State agencies simply because they are of our favoured ethnic or political affiliations; completely relegating issues of competence, experience, ability and ethics to the back burners.
Then the inferno hits, and we start crying foul. Our outrage must be directed first at ourselves because we are directly responsible for placing corrupt incompetents into positions of great responsibility. Even if we are not the appointing authorities, we appointed them with our vote.
As former American proconsul to Kenya Johnny Carson once told us, choices have consequences. We tolerate sloth and mediocrity in leadership and are therefore architects of our own miseries. We were warned, but we did not hear, and must face the consequences.
Tomorrow it’s Nigeria versus South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire up against DR Congo in the Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals. We can expect more high-voltage action from a soccer fest that surpasses the World Cup in all the brilliance, drama, twists and turns on display. Not to be missed. I’ll be rooting for the Ndombolo boys to go all the way and lift the cup.
