JAMILA’S MEMO: Singapore - How not to get there

The skyscrapers, the spotless streets, the efficiency, the digital economy.. all very inspiring.

But before we start sketching our skyline, perhaps we should first fix the road to Manga, Mote, and Momwamu in Nyamira County.

Because, Your Excellency, Singapore did not become Singapore by holding conferences about Singapore. It started by fixing the small things; roads that don’t drown in mud, promises that don’t dissolve in rain.

It’s been three years since then Deputy President William Ruto stood on a podium in Nyamira and promised a tarmac road. The people there are still waiting for that tarmac you launched, not at a construction site, but on a campaign podium. You even quoted the kilometres, 300 of them, remember? Yes, it was true in speech.

But kwa ground, mambo ni tofauti… What the locals have today isn’t tarmac it’s a mud bath with potholes so deep they could qualify as fish ponds.

And in Bungoma, residents are now hosting weekly roadshows; not the political kind, the protest kind because vehicles get stuck so often they’ve become part of the local landscape. Yet we keep hearing that Kenya is on the “Singapore path.” Yes, maybe if Singapore also started with unfulfilled road projects, delayed tenders, and citizens trekking through sludge.

Let’s be honest. Before we dream of flying cars and bullet trains, we should probably learn how to keep a pickup from sinking in a village road.

Singapore wasn’t built in a day, but it was built. Meanwhile in Kenya, we are still launching what we never finish, promising what we can’t deliver, and branding potholes as “development challenges.”

Singapore didn’t get there by launching projects it never finished, or by turning campaign pledges into folklore. Singapore built systems.. but here, we build ceremonies and cut ribbons. In fact in Kenya, we have two kinds of roads: those that exist in speeches, and those that exist in suffering. The road to Singapore, it seems, is paved with colorful promises, cancelled tenders, and angry residents.

So, Your Excellency, by all means, let’s chase the Singapore dream…. but maybe our road to Singapore begins in Nyamira and Bungoma  and every forgotten corner where citizens are still waiting for the basics.

Because you can’t pave the road to Singapore if you haven’t even paved the road to a school.

And that… is my memo.