Who left the Nairobi oven on and ran away with the keys?

The whole world is in Glasgow speaking English through the nose and helping Jesus save the planet. Those who don’t have money for flight tickets have been asked to pay attention, because if their children fail environmental studies exams they shouldn’t go to social media to tell us how they’re model parents.

Everyone agrees our planet needs to be saved from the iron grip of human beings. Animals won’t do it as they fear going to the butchery. Plants fear our menacing axes. Earthworms no longer come up to the surface for lack of trees where early birds can perch. Even the devil is reluctant to intervene as the global temperatures are about to surpass that of hell fire, which could make him extinct.

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt this past week, it’s that human beings can destroy the planet and hold a global conference to get paid for pointing fingers at themselves.

Take the Kenyan delegation, for example. Everyone in Glasgow passed underneath the Mombasa Road concrete canopy on their way to JKIA. While it might be fashionable to get on the nerves of global leaders at COP26, the trees bleeding on the Nairobi Expressway route weren’t sentenced to death by anyone outside this country.

Global leaders have been put through emotional trauma this past week. They had to admit that they dumped gooey sludge in Nairobi River, stripped Mau forest of cheerful clothes, sent locusts to greet smallholder farmers and chewed money meant for irrigating dry lands. 

We blame the colonialists for many things, but they left us a Nairobi River that had transparent water and a green city cooler than a fridge. Today, Nairobi residents have to choose between fanning themselves at night and bribing mosquitoes to have mercy on their eardrums.

Trees in Kenya are wondering why we had to send a delegation to Glasgow to ask world leaders to save them, yet those who are killing them are well known, operate in broad daylight and get paid handsomely for it.

Climate change conference

World leaders aren’t the ones contravening city zoning laws by uprooting indigenous forests and planting highrise buildings. We haven’t heard of any world leader getting implicated in the murder of that passionate environmentalist who was killed for shielding Kiambu forest from people with bottomless stomachs. World leaders don’t run NTSA vehicle inspection centres, punching approval stickers on coughing jalopies that mix our Godly air with devilish smoke.

When the Kibaki administration embarked on Mau forest restoration, local leaders lined up to remind Kenyans that trees aren’t registered voters, and anyone supporting their conservation was sure to see red at the ballot.

Those who said rain comes from heaven are still here and haven’t been stopped by the Government from passing over that polluted gene to their innocent progeny.

The Kenyan delegation to Glasgow should’ve started by apologising to our environmentalists who’ve defended trees with their lives, political leaders who’ve put the environment before their stomach, and persons of goodwill who have been unfairly targeted for declaring that the earth is round when all others insisted it was flat.

At how many conferences have we made lofty promises we weren’t keen to keep? Water for all by 2000. Laptops for all by 2013. Stadiums for all in six months. Kenyans are also children of God and the government should try feeding us on five loaves and two fish, because the lies haven’t been able to fight hunger and starvation.

After wowing world leaders with polished speeches and filtered reality, come and help us sweep our house before we go telling others how to arrange their furniture.

Like charity, the climate change conference must begin at home. We also want the Nairobi Metropolitan Services to tell us who left the Nairobi oven on and went away with the keys. 

The writer comments on topical issues; [email protected]