Lessons learnt from History:

I am not a history buff since this was one of the few subjects that I had little interest in and did not do well in but I have come to learn that there is a lot to be learnt from history. Leon Uris was one of my favorite historical authors many years ago and his novels often based on true life experiences of the Jews during the 2nd world war were dear to me.

“The human being is the only animal in this universe capable of infinite sadism and cruelty to all other species of animal including his own” - a quote I came up with a few years back.

These words have been coming back to haunt me ever since I started watching a series on television called ‘Nazi Hunters’ that depicts the excesses of the Nazis under Hitler during the Third Reich. Medical experiments on women, men and children followed by killing through lethal injection, gassing and execution are well choreographed and depicted in the series though thankfully the gory details are spared. Starvation, overwork and other forms of torture also led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

The series focuses on specific high ranking individuals within the Nazi party hierarchy that were especially brutal against the Jews in Germany and other parts of German occupied Europe and who had specific responsibilities to devise the most barbaric and sadistic ways to exterminate a human being known to man as ‘the final solution to the Jewish problem’ and how these men were later hunted down, after occupied Europe was taken over the allied troops, either to be forcefully repatriated to stand trial or to be assassinated by an execution squad. Many of them were elderly people when they were caught or assassinated in their supposed safe havens in the capital cities of South America secure in the knowledge that their crimes against humanity would remain unpunished as they enjoyed their ill-gotten wealth in the sunset of their lives. If ever there was a case of abuse of office these Nazi officers were guilty of it even as they professed to be following orders from above.

The atrocities committed on the Jews was unimaginable often in squalid and inhumane camps and ghettos some specifically constructed as death/extermination camps while others still as concentration camps and where millions of men, women and children were tortured and/or summarily executed for no other crime than being a Jew! Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, Belzec, Bergen–Belsen, Dachau and other notorious camps are today shameful monuments to the Nazis misrule of Germany and their occupation of Europe. Many of the Nazi senior officers it was reported also became fabulously wealthy looting and stealing from the condemned Jew populace then reselling jewelry, gold teeth and other valuables on the black market. Talk of adding insult to injury!

This is why listening to President Uhuru Kenyatta declare war on corruption in government recently was like a breath of fresh air as was the case of Amos Kimunya a once powerful and untouchable Finance Minister being hauled before a judge to answer to charges of corruption and abuse of office. Whether this campaign will be sustainable and non-partisan in who is caught up and prosecuted for corruption, abuse of office, and…………….dare I say it……………… crimes against humanity!

How many more corrupt untouchables who have devised devious, barbaric and sadistic ways to perfect their corrupt ways will this latest onslaught by the current government haul before the courts? How many more scandals arising out of corruption and abuse of office shall see the light of day before the whip is cracked on these people? Why is corruption allowed to thrive yet this is the cancer (pun intended) that sees young children dying unable to access medical facilities and life giving drugs in our public hospitals thanks to a cabal of corrupt courtiers in bed with the government officers in charge of procurement? How could these shameless cartels have been able to infiltrate the laptop project, the presidents very own pet project with wanton abandon if they do not enjoy the protection of someone high up in the pecking order?

Is there really a difference between the current Kenyan corruption cartels and the Nazi high command during World War II who did not have a care in the world stealing, murdering, pillaging, executing and assassinating all who stood in their way and consigning those too poor to do anything to a life of misery in squalid camps and ghettos and to a life of survival for the fittest because of their wanton excesses. Our very own Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz and other camps (slums) abound across the country where the victims of corruption reside in abject squalor and hardships surviving on little more than hope and a prayer shameful monuments to a corrupt and uncaring regime!

Will our “Nazi Hunters” through the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission have the gumption and tenacity to hunt down and take down and disassemble these Nazi cartels in our midst enjoying the fruits (or is it lemons) of their ill-gotten wealth secure in the knowledge that they are above arrest and prosecution?

Only time will tell but the lesson from history is that where there is a will there is a way however long it takes as was demonstrated in the hunt for the Nazis after World War II many of whom were caught up with 15 to 25 years after their atrocities were exposed!