Seven great contradictions pulling us away from our national dream

Kenya is a land of breathtaking beauty, cultural wealth, and constitutional promise. Yet beneath the hills, hymns, and headlines lies a deep ache — a dissonance between what we claim and what we are.

Ours is a nation of grand declarations and grim realities. Our Constitution reads like a moral compass, but our daily life is steered by something else: fractured loyalties, ethnic instincts, and hardened cynicism. Kenya suffers from seven great contradictions, each pulling us further from the soul of our national dream.

Our Constitution opens with pride: “one indivisible sovereign nation under God.” Yet we live as a mosaic of tribal enclaves, more loyal to ethnic chiefs than national ideals. God may be in the Constitution, but tribal gods, money gods, and fear gods dominate the public square.

During elections, churches split along ethnic lines. Political loyalty is tribal, not ideological. The gods now demand to build God a house — a house He never asked for. God is not broke; He desires broken hearts. But our gods are too proud to surrender. They offer bricks when God asks for contrition.

Even religious spaces mirror these divides. Pastors take political sides. Pulpits are auctioned to the highest donor. The name of God is evoked to baptise agendas that have nothing to do with justice or truth. This is not the nation under God we declared. It is many nations, under many gods, who seek only power and protection, not holiness.

We the people vs we the powerful

“We the people of Kenya…” is how the Constitution begins. But in practice, Kenya is shaped not by the people, but by the powerful. What the people resist, the powerful impose. When citizens protest, they are scattered as criminals. When they speak, they are ignored. Public participation is reduced to a ritual, public opinion treated as a nuisance. The powerful expect submission, not scrutiny. We are governed, but not heard. Led, but not loved.

The gap between the citizen and the State is growing into a chasm. Decisions affecting millions are made in boardrooms and hotel lobbies, not in forums of dialogue.

Youth as asset vs youth as liability

Kenya is a young nation — this should be our greatest strength. But the State treats its youth not as a resource but a risk.

Young people are mobilised for votes, then discarded. When they protest, they’re met with bullets. When they speak truth, they’re dismissed as naïve.

The July 2024 youth protests were a wake-up call. Young people, armed with nothing but courage and conscience, said what the elders feared to whisper. They revealed that the emperor of governance is naked. Yet instead of listening, the State cracked down. It is tragic when a nation fears its future so much it prefers to arrest it.

A Christian nation without Christ

We wear Sunday suits, sing in loud choirs, and fill crusade fields. Even politicians must display a public faith to be seen as legitimate. But Christ — His compassion, His truth, His justice — is missing in action. We celebrate Jesus with our mouths, but resist His teachings with our lives. Pulpits are safe spaces for the powerful, not prophetic voices for the poor. Churches have become political theatres. We build cathedrals while poverty begs at the gate.

Educated nation vs illiterate outcomes

Degrees abound — but where is the evidence of learning? Ours is a paper-based education system that rewards cramming, not character. Our schools produce certificates, not citizens. Corruption is the one subject we seem to have mastered. To be educated now often means learning how to loot better. We have taught minds and abandoned morals. The result is a system smart in trickery but starved of wisdom.

This is not merely an academic crisis; it is a moral one. Education divorced from ethics becomes a tool for tyranny. We must ask: What kind of citizen is our curriculum creating? What kind of leader does our school system reward?

Integrity as principle vs integrity as suicide

Chapter Six of the Constitution enshrines integrity. But in practice, honesty is a liability. Whistleblowers are fired, honest officials sidelined, ethical businesspeople crushed. Integrity doesn’t open doors — it closes them. We elect suspects and reward cunning. Integrity is treated not as a standard, but as a stunt. What matters isn’t what’s right, but what you can get away with.

Rich heritage vs values drought

We are heirs to deeply moral traditional cultures, where character once mattered more than power. But in our rush to modernity, we’ve abandoned virtue and retained only what helps us dominate — like oaths, patronage, and ethnic suspicion. We’ve lost the moral compass of our ancestors and replaced it with a hunger for shortcuts. How can a people so rich in tradition be so poor in character?

Our grandmothers taught truth with proverbs. Our grandfathers lived honour through sacrifice. But today’s Kenya is allergic to delay, allergic to struggle, allergic to integrity. We want instant wealth, instant fame, instant gratification. But no nation rises on shortcuts. No generation prospers without principles.

Where do we go from here?

Every nation has contradictions — but not every nation survives them. Kenya must confront its dissonance. Our crisis is not just political; it is spiritual and moral.

Until we close the gap between who we say we are and who we truly are, we will keep singing hymns while sinking into hypocrisy.

It will take courage — courage to speak the truth, to resist cynicism, and to rediscover conscience. The Church must choose the margins over the mansion.

The youth must refuse to be used or silenced. Leaders must rediscover the power of integrity. And citizens must stop waiting to be saved — and start saving the dream.

We are not helpless — only disoriented. The compass is still in our conscience. The courage? We must find it in each other.