We have been turned into a nation of cynics

Sometimes we get our priorities as a country upside down and push certain agendas that are counterproductive, at least in the eyes of the public.

There are several programmes and projects that the government has recently initiated that, if you ask me, are at best ingenious and at worst hair brained – neither of which is anywhere near being good.

I was looking at the countrywide cattle vaccination programme supposed to be part of a global campaign to reduce methane emissions. Global warming is real as we have found out especially over the last half a century, with weather patterns taking a turn for the worse everywhere.

We must find a way to tackle global emissions. I however don’t think vaccinating cattle will have the desired effect of reducing global warming substantially. There are easier and more immediate action to tackle emissions, but such solutions are unacceptable to the global north. Why don’t they for instance deal with pollution from their industries?

Back to the vaccination programme: part of my problem with it is the way it’s being rolled out – in a rush and with little public education.

It seems the programme is being pushed the throats of farmers who have none or limited understanding of global warming. Try to tell a farmer in my village Kimango of a correlation between a cow unleashing gas and the changing weather patterns and you have truly lost him.

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Why don’t they conduct these experiments in their own countries, using their bovines, before rolling out to other miserable countries like ours?

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I get the feeling that gullible third world countries such as ours are used as a testing ground for such. Some fellows somewhere in a lab in the US are sitting pretty waiting to see effects of these vaccines on our poor cattle.

If the results are positive, then they can roll it to their well-groomed cattle; if not, they move onto the next project.

Our government should and must always be seen as the custodian of a peoples’ hopes and aspirations.

But when it starts losing public goodwill, everything it does, even when it’s a good thing, is viewed in a negative light. And when the negative overrides the positive, it is clear who the winner is.

In Kenya, most government projects are seen by the public as nothing more than money minting projects for a few well-connected honchos.

And, usually, the public is not wrong in making this assumption because there is a trail of failed projects.

For instance, the massive housing projects across the country is a good idea being badly executed. Such a project was pushed through by the first president of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. Even today, those are the same houses many Singaporeans still live in.

One thing is certain that a construction boom is a bonus for a country.

Construction pushes GDP growth and creates huge numbers of blue- and white-collar jobs. But we must always have the end-result in sight. We must think what we will do with the houses after they are built, say, in Voi. Who will afford them?

Do they even need these houses anyway, given that in the village, most people own homes, even if they are hovels.

Do you expect a person happily tending to his cattle to pack his belongings, leave his herd and come and stay in town even if by some miracle he could afford the deposit and monthly payments?

I am not sure what the government’s plans are for these houses and we might end up with white elephants all over the country. But such is our lot: we have been turned into cynics who see darkness even in the height of day.

-The writer is a communications consultant