13 February 2017. It is a normal Monday morning. Setting – Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

The Employment and Labor Relations Court in Nairobi finds Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) officials guilty of contempt of court for failing to call off a strike which has crippled Kenya’s health sector and sentences them to 1 month jail.

The country is in split in the middle. I mean these doctors are mean. Right? No, these doctors deserve it – after all, the government machinery promised. Let them deliver on their promises. Sounds cool. But come to think about it, aren’t we promised so much by the ruling elite only to be an utterly disappointed electorate.

So which way Kenya? Are we having a really HEALTHY leadership?

Is this about the time there needs to be mass anger against the current standoff? Not necessarily against the doctors or at the government, but the crisis. First it was “no medical service delivery at government facilities” and now, the threat is to shut down ALL medical facilities and have no medical care in any medical facility – private or public! Does this scare the hell out of any well-meaning leader out there?

The rich and elite bourgeoisies will be in ICU beds, just as the poor proletariats and henchmen have been lying on hospital benches without medical attention. Which way Kenya. I cry for my country. A country once a bedrock of peace.

Speaking of peace, are we in a state of negative peace? Is this peace that is a fallacy? I am captivated by an epic by a close friend of mine. A friend I respect. A man who has dedicated himself to public service. As a surgeon with a leading Level 5 public hospital, this writing could not be written any different. I share the words of Dr. Vincent Omeddo verbatim:

“A Civil Peace”

We live in a country called Kenya the epitome if peace. An island of peace surrounded by conflict. This had always been a source of pride for me whenever I engaged in conversation with friends from foreign countries especially from sub-saharan region ravaged by war, famine and poor leadership.

I remember vividly having a conversation with a Cameroonian friend that I respect a lot. It was during our lunch break at the University and he had very strong convictions about making his country better. We compared development indices and I proudly declared to him that “we don’t compare ourselves with failed states”

Now I am at a time when I shall take back my words. We are a failed state. Just as Jonathan Iwegbu of Chinua Achebe’s African short story of 1971, I have finally peeled off the scales from my eyes and faced the truth that we are country with a lost soul.

Jonathan Iwegbu returns home from war and is very glad to find his bungalow survived the destruction of conflict. He quickly gets about the business of fending for his family. However, the “peace” does not last long as robbers come the same night to his house and demand for the cash he made at daytime.

The punchline that sticks to my mind till this day was “na tief man and him pipo make you hopen de door”.

Jonathan obliges and gives his daily earnings; all of 20 pounds to the thugs. Truly a country pretending to be at peace but effectively at war- “a civil peace”.

The government has jailed its doctors for engaging in lawful strike action, thrown obstacles in the way of successful negotiation and deployed paramilitary police to disperse a peaceful gathering of Kenyan citizens. Yet, we think we are a peaceful country. This is a nation at war.

My land is Kenya. I (and this would be true of many citizens) do not have another place to go. I cry for my beloved Kenya that there would be resolve to come to the table and reason.