Kenyan Tragedy
30th April 2016, a whole lot of Kenyans are awoken by the uncommon crack and thud piercing the night, that’s an apartment crumbling. Apparently after ‘investigations’ it was discovered that the apartment in question was built too close to a river, a water way or whatever you’d call the natural route of water as it cascades down to its destiny. Woe unto the occupants of the ill fated block, apart from having lived in poor conditions: narrow dark stairwells, lack of lifts to the more than seven floor building, no fire escape and the mother load of them all built on cotton soil close to a waterway.
You would think that on the onset of such a construction project, all the plans are clearly set on paper for the relevant authorities to see and approve or disapprove. One would assume that the laws creating such offices are compliant to the law creating them even if not 100%, but just enough to ward off catastrophe of this magnitude.
The city council comes of the following morning to reiterate that it had condemned the building years ago! And then what?…….. nothing (they seem to have met a bureaucratic huddle,too high to jump with their huge bellies) meanwhile an unknown number of Kenyans DEAD, just because someone somewhere decided to approve a faulty building and all of us decided that s/he(for gender equality) knew what he was doing, trusting he had our best interest at heart. A voice from the past comes to mind, a specialist on TV to address yet another tragedy,that time several buildings fell in unseeming succession .
“Until we uphold the dignity of every Kenyan, irrespective of class, we shall have unscrupulous businessmen build unlivable apartments, houses only fit for the vilest of beasts. We should mind our fellow Kenyan.”
Politics aside,I believe things just got real and in my short life I have realized that the Kenyan gate keeper/the protector of our rights is sluggish at his job or sleeping or taking every bribe coming his way. Either way this is a crisis of humanity! A crisis that threatens our way of life, our lives are at stake. And yes I realize I am citing across our all so well designed societies, the wealthy, middle class and the common mwananchi. We are all the same,picture the recent riots in town, the affect all and sundry, post Election Violence too. Yes! We are in this together.
When any Kenyan falls we should look, not peer, or scheme through nor flicker through the story pages hurriedly after the juicy lifestyle pages. Like the all so bewildering Israelis, who travel half the world to save their people from potential threat…. Entebbe airport is such a case study.