HIERARCHY OF NEEDS DOES NOT APPLY IN KENYA

On the road to self-actualization, the first step is fulfillment of biological and physiological needs which include food, clothing, shelter, drink, sex etc. The next most important step is fulfillment of safety needs which include safety, protection, law, order, stability etc. The other two needs that one needs to achieve before attaining self-actualization are Belonging and Esteem needs. To me Vision2030 is a self-actualization need and I find it wrong for us to spend hard-to-come-by resources on higher level needs when we cannot offer security, safety and ensure rule of law in our nation. Provision of basic healthcare for all has been a pipedream in Kenya yet we have a vision of crossing the poverty line for all by 2030. The education standards have long gone to the dogs yet we expect to produce professional to lead and grow this nation to great heights. I have often been told that one cannot scale a tree from the top but I think in Kenya anything and everything is possible. Not that I am against Vision2030, but it beats all logic to spend time and money of functions to commission a project aimed at achievement of a 2030 objective when a every day objective of providing internal security is not addressed.
Kenya is no longer the peaceful Island that it was. When communities are not butchering one another in Tana Delta; grenades are exploding in matatus and churches in Garissa and Eastleigh. In the meantime the Executive are busy opening 400 million residences for their fellow political class and receiving honorary degrees on Everything and Nothing. It surprises me that we can afford a 400 million residence for one family yet we are unable to procure a piece of land and build habitable homes for thousands IDP's. A police officer dies in the line of duty and he/she is quickly buried and forgotten yet when a politician dies while attending to personal matters and we form a commission of inquiry whose proceedings are brought to our television sets every evening just as a reminder of his/her "importance".

MY TAKE ON OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

For the past one month or so we have read in newspapers and watched on our television sets the atrocities being committed at the Tana Delta by rival ethnic communities. Some of us have had the chance to witness this first hand and I don't envy them any bit. I really feel sorry for those that have lost their loved ones and property in this mayhem. Just like the majority of you I long for a peaceful coexistence with my neighbour without regard to their colour, gender, height, weight, ethnic origin or any other distinctive difference.

This presidency that many of us were so optimistic about in 2002 has let us down not once but countless times. During the nyayo era our economy had been crippled by endless corruption and embezzlement of public funds. One of the many promises that led to the landslide victory of the current president was his promised to unilaterally eradicate corruption. As we near the end of his second term, a majority of his cronies and members of his kitchen cabinet have been mentioned in one scam or the other and corruption has become a way of life for the high and mighty in Kenya. I only hope the new found judicial independence will be our saving grace.