By Ekakoro Emorut
Kenyans, I want you to pause and ponder how your beloved gava has handled Coronavirus aka Rona so far :
1. They continued allowing flights long after it had become dangerous to do so.
2. They never responded to the plight of Kenyans stuck in Wuhan.
3. Their idea of limiting spread was to introduce a night curfew (apparently Rona is nocturnal).
4. The police are extremely brutal in dealing with those who break the curfew.
5. Now you can be charged and fined for walking around without a mask, and drivers delivering food need to show the police a clearance from Mbagathi even though no public announcement has been made to that effect.
6. Let’s double back to no. 5 about masks. No, they’re not buying the mask for you, but you must have it. Now let’s move to no. 7.
7. They have ordered more bodybags. For these ones they won’t charge you. When you need them you’ll have free use….
8. Back to no. 2. Now your compatriots in China are being persecuted for ‘importing Rona to China’ (even though the virus found them there and they’ve never stepped out of China since the pandemic broke out) and your gava is unbothered. But you were told never to discriminate against the Chinks here…
As you were….
Meanwhile the “anti-lockdowners” claim they speak for the poor, I doubt they include the very vulnerable like streetfolk. In the last election when one presidential candidate talked about a plan for single mothers, a section of the electorate made it sound offensive or like a joke, and ridiculed him for it. In short, we pretend to care but never spend a thought on the really vulnerable. Has any of those concerned flows ever spared a thought for how street families are? When people are being teargassed out of the streets what homes are they being chased to? Leave alone the fact that this mama is something-else-positive….
