All Hail Mututho - The Founding Father of Kenyan Morality!

And so I am watching with bemusement at Kenyan’s (sudden) outrage at Mututho’s incredulous and almost manic obsessive policing of Kenyans and their drinking habits. I on the other hand, I’m less surprised with this sad state of affairs.

When a journey begins overrunning personal choices its a long slippery path and there is no escaping it. Now conveniently, Kenyans are being reminded to get licenses to hold house parties. Ten bob for your thoughts on what criteria would be used if police invade some dinner party to inspect the validity of their license.  Suddenly there is this thin line between state regulation and invasion of privacy. Soon, there will be a special unit to inspect your bathrooms, bedrooms, your relationships (which are already under a spot light needless to say) and oh we cannot leave out the law that governs uteruses!

All the while Kenya is on its knees with a collapsing economy to pay for a ridiculously expensive government, with a legacy of lowly paid health care staff working in deplorable conditions who are currently on strike; teachers paid peanuts over decades and the highlight in all this is the state spending Kshs. 2.5 billion to celebrate 50 years of independence. Many see this as marking the end of one kind of colonialism to another. How much is there to truly celebrate if we still have still have much injustice that goes unabated.

And so I am wondering perhaps with some hope if Kenyans are finally outraged on how fickle it is to introduce moral policing in statutes. The state has no business in your house and in your personal decisions of how many bottles of wine you can consume at a dinner party. The State’s business however is to protect human rights for all its citizens…more time on this and less time on invading personal liberties is the way we should go for the next 50 years!

Lake Nakuru National Park by Sikiliza all rights reserved