What has always intrigued me about Kenyans is their strange sense of patriotism. Most of them are extremely poor but seem not to realise their downtroddenness relative to the country's wealth.
They pride themselves with Nairobi's posh cars, skyscrapers, Kenya Airways and the like but in reality, these are owned by a bunch of Kenyan politicians and oligarchs. Most Kenyans have never boarded their planes!! More than half of Kenya's wealth, mostly in the form of land is in the hands of political families!! The Kenyatta's dynasty alone owns hundreds of thousands of acres!!
We all know that Kenya has never been a coherent nation-state. The Presidency is confined only to people from two or three tribes. So far, the popular resentment against the fiefdom turning into a monarchy has proved futile!!
The majority of Kenyans are worse off than in Tanzanian, where at least, development has been people-centred.
I don't see how Uhuru Kenyatta's tour of the US, China, Theresa May's tour of Kenya or Arsene Wenger's layover in Nairobi would change the Kenyan conundrum!!
The contradiction between Kenyans' sense of patriotism and the majority's poverty, along with persisting tribalism, corruption, nepotism, rent-seeking and the like is really intriguing!!