BLACK WHITE RED WHITE GREEN

Those colors are special- BLACK WHITE RED GREEN- in Kenya. They are the colors of our national flag which we are taught to respect as soon as we are old enough to go to school. I have regarded these colors highly until lately... I still regard them, but now I have questions.

What did my teacher mean when he or was it she said that WHITE on the Kenyan flag stands for PEACE? and our loyal pledge! What are those words again;

       I pledge my loyalty to the president and the nation of Kenya,
       My ready-ness and duty to defend the flag of our republic.
       My devotion to the words of our national motto;
       My life and strength , and service in the task of of nation building, 
       In the living spirit embodied in our national motto
       HARAMBEE and
       Perpetuated in the NYAYO philosophy of PEACE, LOVE and UNITY 

That was how the loyalty pledge appeared in my school diary in primary five and still does in the diary of my 13year old cousin. Maybe I am moving in circles. I know.





....Baragoi Masaccre, Tana Delta clashes, Grenade attacks... I choose to stop here. I don't wish to go into  the details of how news of fathers or mothers killing their children have been hitting our airwaves on a regular basis lately. And that is precisely why I started with the colors of our national flag and then our loyalty pledge. Do we, as a people pay attention to what we are saying... or used to say?

What went wrong?

My favorite blogger, Kate Henshaw(Author of Soul Kate) in her latest post wrote that and I quote;

"...Hardly a day goes by without the headlines of the dailies telling tales of woe; be it the antics of the BH wasting human lives in their numbers in the northern part of Nigeria, the pensions of hard working civil servants being carted away by scrupulous Director Generals and their board or the death traps on our roads. Millions of money being poured down the drain of various awarded contracts that never get done or completed. The inadequate maintenance of our infrastructure that are left dilapidated purposely so that someone can make millions from awarding the contract to bring them back to some semblance of good condition for usage. Strikes are embarked upon supposedly to right the wrongs but they end with no logical conclusion to the matter at hand; NUPENG, PHCN, ASUU,etc. How come all these stolen money is never recovered? Your guess is as good as mine. Discussing Nigeria is a daily staple and I have come to the conclusion that one has to steal big to make it worthwhile because then, you never go to jail nor return the money. Only the man who steals 5000naira or a bicycle gets thrown into jail and even the innocent woman who was just by the side of the road when a LASTMA official was killed by a bus driver, gets thrown into jail with her two month old baby...!"

 I think I have nothing more to say that will be news to you. The world seems to be playing a dangerous game and it seems even GOD has shut HIS curtains at us because we perpetually refuse to do the right thing.