By Jerry Okungu
Nairobi, Kenya
October 23, 2013
John Allan Namu is a great
Kenyan. Hate him or love him but he delivers.
On Tuesday night I stayed
late to watch his latest expose on Westgate saga. He did not disappoint. When
it was over I could not sleep. I kept on thinking of my country Kenya. I kept
wondering what had really gone wrong with my beautiful country.
Then I remembered the
Norfolk bombing of 1980, the American Embassy and surrounding buildings of
1998. Then Kikambala came flying through my memory like a kite.
I remembered that in 2010
during the World Cup finals, Ugandans were gathered in their droves in their
most popular spot. On that day their joy was never to be. Al Shabaabs chose to
make minced meat of Ugandan innocent people. Before that, they had attacked a
Kampala bound bus from Nairobi that was full of Ugandans.
These two heinous acts
made the Uganda government to make a conscious decision to deal with Al
Shabaabs wherever they were. With available technology, they were hunted one by
one from their Kenyan hideouts and shipped out to Uganda where they probably
met hell on earth. Since then, no other attacks have taken place on Ugandan
soil.
Next door Tanzania, it is
almost impossible to hear of Al Shabaab operatives bombing Dar es Salaam at
will. However, Nairobi has become a play ground for these murderers. They come
and bomb us at will.
The reason we are
suffering is because our leaders love money too much. When criminals come with
loads of cash to open fake business accounts, buy apartments or rent posh
residential areas, we take their money and look the other way. Whatever they do
thereafter is not our concern. It is the reason every lowlife foreigner holds a
Kenyan passport and an ID card.
Never mind that they don’t
know where their grandmothers were buried, the name of their chief and a single
world in Kiswahili.
Today, Eastleigh and the
rest of Eastlands of Nairobi no longer belong to Nairobi. They were annexed a
long time ago by Mogadishu and Juba. The more up market Fedha Estate area,
Green Fields, Embakasi, South B, South C and Makadara residential areas have
equally gone to Mogadishu grabbers. Now they have moved in droves to Milimani,
Kilimani, Kileleshwa, Lavington, Mulolongo and the whole of Athi River all the
way to Namanga. If today you visit Kajiado which is the traditional Maasai
city, you may not recognize it. It went to our foreign friends a long time ago.
This background only helps
us to understand the reason why Kenya is a soft target for terrorists. With
this large population that is not vetted, it was easy for the wolves of
Westgate and the white widow to find accommodation and assemble their deadly
weapons of mass destruction right under our noses and plan evil at will.
Going through memory lane,
where did the rain start beating us? When the Artur Brothers walked into Kenya
and terrorized us for six good months with the full knowledge of the government
of the day, what did we do? When the brothers invaded the Standard Newspaper
and destroyed equipment and set a blaze news papers, what did we do? Didn’t we
call them investors and gave them unprecedented privileges?
Is it not in Kenya where
an ordinary civilian in the Rift Valley made himself Deputy Commissioner of Police
without the knowledge of the Police Commissioner?
How many times between
Kikambala bombings and today have we arrested terrorists and released them for
lack of evidence? Or was money always changing hands?
When the Kenya Defence
Forces, the Recce GSU Squad and the police stormed Westgate to release
hostages, did these armed forces focus on the problem at hand or were they
distracted by sudden wealth to be looted? Did the police and KDF briefly
exchange fire to gain an upper hand?
The wolves came to Nairobi
to kill human beings. They were not interested in cash, jewellery or other
valuable items. Why did it take a whole army of Kenyan Police and KDF to get
rid of just a handful of wolves who even had time to wash their feet and pray
in Nakumatt?
Who set the building on
fire and ordered the KDF to get “water” from Nakumatt when KDF have enough
water to last them a life time?
As we move on with our
lives, we hope that one day, someone more credible will tell Kenyans the truth
about what happened at Westgate so that the relatives of the departed will be
at peace with themselves. On this score Minister Ole Lenku and KDF Chief of
Staff have let Kenyans down.
0 comments:
Post a Comment