On August 13, President William Ruto kick-started a rare but insightful debate about the despicable culture of corruption in Parliament.
He followed it up a week later, at the UDA and ODM parliamentary group meeting, by going even further and providing a sum he reported had been asked of a governor who was the subject of impeachment by the Senate.
In a country under the mafia-style stranglehold of graft cartels, anyone would have imagined Ruto’s disclosure would have been received with sobriety and introspection.
Instead, and almost predictably, MPs and senators, instead of sobriety, responded like self-absorbed bigoted prima donnas, so comfortable milking the country dry, and wondering why Ruto had the temerity to disturb their gravy train.
In our public life, MPs have cultivated an air of self-importance and self-aggrandisement that flies in the face of the abject poverty they represent.
Ruto started a debate that ordinarily ought to cascade to every veneer of our society with the eventual intention of getting the public support to tame the hydra-headed dragon.
The MPs have been invited to use their powers, legislative and administrative, not only to wake up and change their ways, but to contribute to the solution.
But they choose to focus on the narrow and personal, and miss the big picture.
Quote of the day: “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” —German writer and social philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749
