For Money, We Sell Our Conscience and Morals

For the past three weeks, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates have been writing their last examinations in their secondary education level. Sadly, it is an exam that has been plagued by the shameful reality of leakages in nearly all exams. Yes, candidates, mainly via the all too common Whatsapp social platform have accessed the papers and had ample time to go through the papers before they sit them. Fourteen teachers, two police officers and 79 students have so far been arrested on allegations of colluding to perpetrate the exam leakage (DN, Wednesday October 28, 2015). The sad reality of this year’s KCSE exams is that it has enjoyed unprecedented levels of leakages and as a result lost its credibility and placed some candidates at unfairly advantageous positions. But is there a bigger picture behind this KCSE scam?

As some greedy and immoral Kenyans engage in the illegal trade of making money out of examination leakages, so is the rest of the society. From government officials to the hoi-polloi, anything in this nation sells, just for some coins! Examinations have year in year out been leaked and a booming business thrived, traffic offenders buy their way out of trouble courtesy of Ksh 50-notes to hungry traffic cops, allegations of soul buying for key motions in our August House have always been there, education certificates including University degrees have been bought by ignorant Kenyans and bribery-for jobs describe a huge chunk of our jobs! Simply put, money buys anything and everything in Kenya, including souls! For money and other benefits, our sisters accept the loatheful tag of mipango ya kando, young energetic men and women disappear into the arms of sugar-mummies and daddies! Abomination you say but do they give a hoot, No.

We simply have stooped so low to the extent of eroding our moral fiber and trying to fool our conscience as Kenyans and adopting the dangerous ‘Do Not Care’ attitude. Welcome to Kenya, where everything sells for money! Religious charlatans disguised as men of the cloth, offer prayers at the click of the money-button. Televangelists nearly blow our ears each morning as they treat us to a dose of religious mesmerization. After all, there is money in the business of selling the Word of God! Remember that majority of pastors shamelessly tell Kenyans to pay for prayers, the very spiritual food that Jesus Christ freely fed the masses! The list of goodies on sell is simply endless!

We have lost our moral fiber as a society and sadly, the law can never solve this problem. For any society to be fair and equally treat its family members, morality is inevitable. For morality, our conscience informs our decisions and thus money does not push us to these greedy levels to sell everything and anything that is in our hands and can profit us. For sound conscience, a society realizes that not everything can be bought and that not all problems can be solved by money! Conscience simply appeals to our rational judgement of right from wrong, far away from the repercussions of breaking the law. For the devious love of dishonest and easy money, our roads have become killer dens, young men and women lost dignity by turning into mipango ya kando and sugar-daddies/mummies, old enough to be their parents, exams being revised even before they are written by the candidates, justice on sale and cheap politics as Kenyans clap and sing praises for those who loot our economy, destroy our youths by selling lethal drugs to them and grabbed land meant for the weak and meek among a host of other evils. For the love of dishonest money, we have sold the sanity of the Kenyan society to the dogs and turned it into a man eat man society!

The KCSE leakages are just a drop in the ocean of how love for dishonest and evil money has broken our backbones! Courtesy of greed and the abhorable love for cheap and dishonest money, justice can be bought, religious charlatans con and swindle Kenyans spiritually and economically, youths disappear into despicable sexual patterns, corruption is a national sport and with every dawn of the sun, we keep bending lower! The law is not the solution. Rather, we must awaken our moral standards and conscience! For any society to be worth the name, its moral fiber and conscience must be alive toward it off the devious greed of cheap and dishonest money.