experiences of discrimination , bullying , poverty or neglect all add up to create a sensitive individual inclined to mental instability .
Kenya , as a country , has not seriously addressed the real issues and effects of mental health as the subject falls into the group of subjects under the wide net of taboos . To lose one ’ s mind has been and is still associated with societal curses .
Religion had for a long time been the one area that had retained any semblance of sanity , perhaps because deep down , as human beings , we do have a sense of what is right or wrong as taught through various holy teachings .
This last bastion of moral standards has seen an onslaught of charismatic leaders who have so changed the holy words and given new interpretations to religious norms and the country finds itself adrift caught in the gospel of greed and selfishness .
These are times when men of the cloth take vows without a calling and politicians take the oath of office with contempt . A man ’ s word is no longer his bond and many of those in leadership , given their regular antics , perhaps belong to mental institutions .
The spectrum of mental health runs from the mild to the extreme and can manifest itself from a mild absent mindedness to a howling lunatic at Mathare . It is the existence of the huge majority in the middle that pass for normal citizens that should concern us .
The product of this broken system is the people that democracy , without any filters , now chooses for Kenya as its leaders at every level of government and we are left to wonder where these lords of misrule came from .
The Kenyan electorate went to the polls to choose a leadership with a vision having traversed the whole country selling a new
tomorrow with energy and gusto but what we elected was a leadership with illusions .
One year down the line in the driving seat and the leadership is still traversing the country selling a better tomorrow while making today a living nightmare . Kenya is deeper in debt and the operative policies by default are impoverishing the citizenry .
What is disturbing for Kenyans is the realization that as the aspirant leaders crisscrossed the length and breadth of Kenya , they actually had no plan of how to govern the country . Even more disconcerting is that there may never be a plan .
Could it be that we are dealing with a leadership with a hidden fear that they know they are not good enough despite the braggadocio . A leadership that is afraid to be found out that they are just pretenders to the throne .
Could all this guesswork , manipulation and cluelessness be an indicator of a deeper personality malaise ? Why is it necessary to grasp and hold tightly to every area of government ? Does the leadership have a phobia of delegation .
Why is the country being run by trial and error and why are we still in a campaign mode or is that what we are comfortable with , winning an election and not running a country . When does this administration get to sit down and reflect on the way forward ?
There are many a hustler who are yet to figure out what happened in the last elections . They were royally beguiled by a prince charming who sold them a king size dream about the underdog overturning the dynasty .
They were convinced that the proverbial Kenyan liberations were at last a dream come true and they actually visualized a mama mboga sitting in the corridors of power flanked by a jua kali artisan in charge of industrialization .
When anything you want in life is for sale then the only thing that matters is to acquire the money by whatever means and since Kenyans have also learnt to laud the result but not the process , we fete our fraudsters as the champions for beating the system .
They sang and ululated that the days of the dynasties were over and the person who does the work was finally getting the credit and benefit . They didn ’ t know it then , but they had , as the economist say , achieved a proletariat revolution , all thanks to the prince .
Many are still dumbfounded by the stark reality of the deception and the realization that the charm and camaraderie they felt for this polished orator who made them espouse his dream of a better Kenya was a superficial charlatan only hungry for power .
The familiar guy-next-door charm was gone in a flash and as he truthfully hinted that as soon as he laid down the bible , the ruthless chess master with an iron fist carefully concealed in fluffy mittens would be unleashed , to the dismay of the hustlers .
The hustlers overnight became Mungiki and found themselves on the receiving end of an angry tirade of a president reminding them to be respectful of the presidency yet it was him that taught them to disparage the previous president .
No sooner had he ascended to power than he started to consolidate power around himself by enticing the judiciary to become his lapdogs while embarking on a buyout spree for amoral politicians willing to sell their constituents at a handsome fee .
The endgame was to emasculate democracy while shouting from the agora , that a thriving democracy needed a vibrant opposition to keep the government in check . The master of deception and political doublespeak at his best .
Here is a man with a castle size ego , a know-it-all with an inflated sense of self who cannot brook criticism . A leader who appointed a lack-luster cabinet of grateful sycophants who toe the line so that his light never dims . A one-man circus .
The ministries and government departments are so micro-managed that no one dares to speak even as they are berated for not knowing what happens in their dockets . They are smart enough to realize that they were never appointed to perform but to applaud .
The most confounding quality of the current leader has to be the incessant and unnecessary lies , most of which were campaign promises but even for the hardened cynic his falsehoods are on a
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