But our elevation was cut short, so he got halfway up the pedestal, there to hang inelegantly in the spirit of 'nusu mkate'. And he seems vertiginious all the time, as though our expectations of him are extremely and unreasonably onerous. He is falling back more and more on the 'nusu mkate' argument than he is on his avowed commitment to ' transformation' and so forth.

What has happened?

Two things have happened.

One, he is getting inured to the alternative reality of power and privilege as instruments of exclusion and limited good.

Two, he is discovering that being of limited good, and being exclusive, it is an obvious imperative of power and privilege to cut off the people to whom one made unrealistic commitments whilst outside. Unrealistic in the sense that such commitments are opposed to the alternative reality, see above.

So has Raila betrayed us?

It would be easy to say that, but it might not be right, ultimately. Betrayal implies a reneging on a legitimate commitment. It is legitimate if both the promissor and the promisee are entitled to make and extract the commitments in question.

We would be entitled to claim that Raila had betrayed us is if we could demonstrate that we were collectively suited to the commitments. And we cannot do so if we do not possess the rigorous vigilance, fidelity to due process and commitment to democratic give and take that are necessary to hold leaders accountable for their commitments. If Raila has betrayed the cause, and that is arguable, very few of us have the capacity to hold him to his word. That barely lets him off the hook and leaves us wholly disenchanted.

I have come to the conclusion that we are not rigorous in holding Government and leadership - such as there is - responsible and accountable. We do not ask for more, for better, for an improvement, for a step forward. We become irritable to threats upon the status quo. We seek a form of change that does not require our moral responsibility. We want to wholly delegate to the said leaders, instead of micromanaging their sorry behinds as democracy requires.

That is why Kenya is officially a dumping ground. Of dangerous and obsolete ordnance left over from the Cold War, of defective products from all over the world, of shaky 'professionals' and' 'expatriates' whose only claim to distinction is their complexion, of ideas and ideologies that have fallen on 'the wrong side of history' as cuz Barry would say, of sad, unwashed leadership, of...

I hate it when Raila's family is mentioned in connection with scandals. Perhaps it can be argued that in a free country, every Kenyan is entitled to choose which scandal to wallow in. It demonstrates, however, how quickly we accustom ourselves to failure, how easily we tolerate lapses, regression and mediocrity, and how accepting we are of betrayal and disillusionment as both logical and axiomatic. There is every reason to believe that the mention of Raila's name, and of his associates' and relations' is mischievous and mistaken. That is beside the point. The point is that because we do not hold our public servant to any standard of conduct and ethics we actually expect the ruling families to behave badly.

We expect our leaders to be highly conspicuous in their consumption. That is why a newspaper recently went ga-ga reporting how simply scandalous it was that Prof Kivutha Kibwana enjoyed chicken and chips at an airport cafe! We expect our leaders to steal. We expect our politicians to get into all manner of sickness as long as they entertain us on TV. And it has spread. We expect Asian tycoons to treat workers poorly, to flout safety regulations, to steal public money and to treat other Kenyans as part of the wildlife.

And we expect to die in road accidents, to be mutilated and murdered by surgeons while helplessly under anaesthesia, we expect matatu drivers to become lawless tyrants on our roads. We expect our managers, MDs, PSs to appoint and favour their tribesmen and girlfriends.

We actually expect Kenya to become a failed state.

In that regard, we have devised two pernicious and fallacious reasons not to do anything.

The first is that we are to poor to afford decency. Good manners are simply beyond our means. We are a third world country. We do not have mineral wealth. We are too prone to the vagaries of global economic upheavals. Thus, we cannot pay teachers well, we can neither build new, nor equip existing schools, dispensaries and even government departments. We cannot computerise the Companies , Lands and Court registries. We cannot fund research and our scholars must beg for scholarships from western vested interests. We cannot fix our roads, provide farmers with extension services, employ new teachers, nurses, clerks, drivers, build and equip our referrral hospitals, cannot assist fishermen, hawkers, orphans, pastoralists, every other wretched person to see a half-decent way of life.

The second reason is the constitution. It concentrates too much power on the presidency. It does not provide for parliamentary autonomy. It does not give 'teeth' to the Electoral Commission, though it certainly gives it a vast gut. It renders the provincial administration and civil service prone to political interference. It hampers the independence of the judiciary. It puts the fate of Kenyans in the hands of one person. It facilitates abuse of office, land grabbing, Anglo-Leasing type transactions, siphoning of public funds. It requires Kenyans at all levels of government to be ill-mannered. It is harmful to the unborn child.

On account of these reasons, we need to build a mansion for the vice president, speaker, prime minister, clerk to parliament, although we are too poor to give teachers a measly increment. We need to rationalise civil servants' emoluments to become competitive and protect them from being lured to the private sector. We need to pay for politicians' junkets to gallivant all over Europe and America, while poor people are imprisoned in hospitals because they cannot afford treatment. We need to enhance every bigshot's bodyguard whilst robbers are killing children in our slums. And so and so on. The government's train of non-sequiturs huffs and puffs along the downhill track to oblivion.

But not to lose hope, for a new constitution is coming. It will be pure magic. It will prevent politicians' minds from conceiving corrupt and treacherous thoughts, it will prevent thieves from stealing, landgrabbers from landgrabbing, brokers from broking, ghost workers from ghost working, women from conceiving misbegotten reprobates and men from siring them. It will guarantee enhanced rights for every citizen. It will make those rights affordable. It will enable the children of watchmen to go to Saint Mary's and Lenana. It will bring a Prado to every household. It will raise the dead.

We will be raised, incorruptible. We shall be transformed.

For those two reasons, understand if your government wholly devotes itself to doing nothing. Appreciate that meanwhile, swindlers and other sad types must steal in the absence of a good constitution. Kibaki may reappoint Kimunya because the present constitution required the opaque sale of prime taxpayers' property and makes it hard to fire incompetent and corrupt officials. The warrants against Devani had to be lifted; without a new constitution, KCB, KPC and other initials must lose their money.

So we are recruited into a new conspiracy of inaction. Of lack of curiosity. Of want of vigilance. Of the extermination of 'why?'.

And mutual lament.

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