Everyone has a right to dignity, which is a commitment enshrined in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dignity is about respecting people as individuals, giving them choices and offering a bit of normality.
How can a government so powerful ensure that citizens feel they have some level of dignity? And what can be defined as some level of normality, from the Kenyan perspective?
Let me go straight to the point.
To begin with, citizens need to have a dignified life, with all basic needs guaranteed by the government. This would include access to basic government services: health, access to affordable education and access to clean affordable food and water. What are my thoughts on this?
Citizens need to have access to government services. With well-functioning systems and efficient corrupt-free employees. Ending the culture of corruption is important at this point.
For instance, I as a Kenyan citizen, should be able to walk into the Immigration department at Nyayo House, follow a fair queue system, make my application with direct guidelines of how to do it, pay a fair amount of money and walk out knowing that in four weeks I will be ableto receive my passport.
Another example would be maternity services. An expectant mother needs to have access to pre-natal and antenatal services, provided by the Government and free or affordable delivery services. It is at this point that the Government needs to regulate the health private sector that has gone rogue.
On average, normal delivery in a decent middle-class hospital in Nairobi costs Sh100, 000, which makes mothers and fathers anxious even before the baby arrives. If I was Mheshimiwa Nakhumicha, our very able CS, I would have punitive laws that prohibit private doctors from exploiting pregnant mothers who are seeking such a basic service.
I would make maternity services handled by the government alone. Private specialists will only come in if complications arise. While still looking at dignity and basic services to citizens, education is another sector that the government needs to look into keenly.
In developed nations, government schools are known to have the best teachers and even the best educational materials. This is at least from vox populi, based on my current location in Sweden. Government primary and secondary schools in Kenya have the best teachers that TSC could possible allocate to schools, but they are overcrowded.
Overcrowding makes it next to impossible for students to have a dignified learning environment and dignified accommodation. How can the government work around making public schools have more dignified environments?
While they’re at it, for those parents who choose to take their children to private schools, how can the government end the ad hoc fee hikes by the owners of these private schools? Parents need a union to protect them from unfair fee hikes and random costs, such as ‘Teacher motivation fees.’
Saving food for last, because we have the best. Tropical food and cuisine is my favourite and we have it in abundance. In fact, once you travel to temperate countries, and you have to boost most vitamins is when you realize that we have the Sun and everything that grows under it. But how can our Kenyan government ensure that food and the surplus of seasonal food is distributed equally?
How do, you even live as a politician, taking expensive trips, with huge delegations. Such as the one to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, plus all sorts of other global seminars and meetings when some citizens in your country cannot have a plate of food and a balanced diet in a country with surplus and live in a dignified way?
Could it be time to engage patriotic food economists and other relevant experts to respond to such basic ills that are making us less prosperous than we should be?
The writer is a communications researcher and scholar, pursuing Peace and Development Work studies in Sweden. She can be reached at [email protected]