There is a notion that Kibera residents are the poorest in this City Under the Sun.
That is a fallacy because we do not know what to test when measuring poverty levels between residences in Nairobi. Do we look at the huge loans someone has taken to live in a mortgage house that is not his own until after 20 years, or do we regard the one who eats sukumawiki in his own kibanda house in Kibera?
Society has worked with this fallacy and there is an effort by the so-called middle class and wealthy class to ensure that residents in the area continue to languish in the poor conditions, imagined or real.
First, the middle class and upper-class people do not want the poor to rise. Otherwise, who will come to look after their kids or wash the dog or open the blocked sewers?
The political class has been working towards the same status quo.
Whenever there is political heat in the country, leaders always incite people in the slum areas, Kibera included.
What happens is that the agitated residents not only waste time on the streets but stage their riots in these slums too.
When protests are held in the slums, the businesses here are the ones razed down.
It is the houses of the poor that are razed down.
It is the children of the poor that are beaten to death or maimed to levels that will incur a lot of expenses in roaming from hospital to another.
It is our schools that we burn. Our children then get to substandard and overcrowded learning centres where they learn nothing.
It is our talent halls that we destroy.
It is our good neighbours that we kill.
You will never see protests in Runda or Muthaiga or Karen even when the conflict involves people who live there.
Take for example the political wars in the country, you will never see the tyres being burnt at a road in Westlands even when the 'justice' being sought is for an MP who lives there.
All these are schemed by the rich because lives in Kibera don't matter.
The residents must remain poor to continue being used by the rich and the semi-rich for their own agenda.