Thread by @DavidNdii

On the myth of Kenya’s bountiful past. A thread.

I was born in the mid sixties, in a cohort of 300k.. Child mortality was 170/1000 meaning 50k of my age mates died before 5th birthday. ((46/1000 today)

Transition to secondary school was 20% i.e of the 250k who survived childhood, only 50k made it to secondary school (its 80% today). University enrolment was 2k per year ie 4%.

Thus, I am one out of 125 children I started school with, who made university, thats one out of every 4 classes. By the time I graduated in the late 80s, guaranteed public employment had ended.

Structural adjustment came shortly thereafter, and quite a few of my classmates were retrenched before they were 30, becoming 1st generation of economic refugees we now call diaspora.

The total number of people who enjoyed the Africanisation opportunities from independence to the late 70s when it ended cannot exceed 20,000.

Where did this myth of land of plenty and endless opportunity come from and what sustains it (other than millennial entitlement myth-making). This is my take.

Corruption became “liberalized” in the late 80s. Hitherto, we only heard hush hush that a few big people were doing “magendo.” Everyone we knew lived within their means. By the early 90s, it had percolated down to the middle cadres.

By the late 90s unexplained wealth was the norm in the urban middle class. I often found myself wondering how these people, some who were my peers, explained their sudden upward social mobility to their children, yet the economy was in doldrums.

These are the parents of millennials. They lied to them. They invented a land of opportunity that has not existed since the 70s, and even then, only for a tiny small minority.

These are the parents of “middle class” millennials. They lied to their children. They invented a land of opportunity that has not existed since the 70s, and even then, only for a tiny small minority.

These are the parents of millennials. They lied to their children. They invented a land of opportunity that has not existed since the 70s, and even then, only for a tiny small minority.

Dear middle class millennials. No one ruined Kenya for you. Those three family cars, they are bribes. That house in the leafy suburbs you moved into when you were kids— it a procurement scam.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.