Wife Speak: Corruption begins at home

I wrote this after getting off a conversation with someone whose values clashed with mine.

One busy morning, feeling grateful and optimistic for a New Year, I got a text, one of many New Year wishes. The number was not on my contact list but I sent back best wishes as well and the person soon followed up with a question, “You don’t recall me, do you?”

I did not and so, I told him or her, for that matter.

“You gave me your business card during that event when you worked with XYZ.”

“Goodness! That was like 15 years ago.”

“I have never forgotten you.” *Mike wrote back after further introducing himself.

Common practice

I still did not recall him, seeing as I was a salesperson then and dished my cards at any and every event. Being a loyalist to my service providers, I have never changed my phone number.

“Can we do coffee?” Oh wow, dude! First, Covid -19 is still rife and I just recovered from its sting. Secondly, unless it is professional or a family matter, you just don’t ask people’s wives out for coffee. It seems I am the only dinosaur around, as I do not like chain texting with strangers. I called him to understand what would warrant a coffee meeting and if we could discuss it on phone or schedule an online meeting. Turned out, this was an ordinary man interested in a woman. Nothing new under the sun here, but the only hitch here was, this was a married man and a married woman. Fine, it is also neither new nor strange, but just because it is a common practice, does not make it right. It is wrong and shady, period.

Romantic dalliances

He was insistent that he was not interested in discussing business and most definitely not keen on an online meeting. He was keener on romance than finance.

“The only romantic dalliances I have are with my husband.”

“I am married too…but a coffee date would do no harm.”

Imagine at the start of a new year, all you are focused on is some good, honourable engagements and someone just started the year looking for some hanky panky. I suggested a couple’s date instead, knowing very well that he wouldn’t have to be shadier than I thought. To ask his wife to come to meet some other woman over coffee, he had to decline.

Just coffee

And that is how you identify a corrupt individual. Before someone swindles your taxes, they have already started intimate corruption. They have cheated on their spouse, they make fun of adultery and normalise it with statements like ‘just a coffee’.

If someone is defrauding their most intimate partner, what makes you think that they can handle your funds and other resources, be it in the public office or private enterprise?

Morals of an alley cat

Who did you say was seeking your vote again? Look no further than how he or she upholds themselves. Do they have the morals of an alley cat? Hold onto your vote. Are you interviewing for a management role? Disregard the man or woman with the stray eye. This will not just expose your company to reputational risk, but will soon find ways to rob you.

We all feel righteous, to point fingers at the pot-bellied politicians defrauding us, but we forget that we are as corrupt as they are. There is no them versus us. We are the same ones who run for office, hold prime positions and instead of truly serving, we cut deals behind closed doors, dish the prime tenders to our relatives and defraud our employers.

We run behind the back of the one person we vowed to honour and forsake all others. Women, married or not, pregnant or flat-bellied, get hit on all the time. But this particular case riled me, I think because his attitude represents a lot of our attitudes.

We joke about mpango wa kando, without a second thought about how damaging this is to a child, when the family unit disintegrates. We are raising children who have no moral compass; because we, the parents are morally corrupt.

Time is nigh that we should qualify a candidate to any high office based on how they treat their spouse.

Karimi is a wife who believes in marriage. [email protected]