On Good Fri­day morn­ing, a dis­turb­ing event unfold­ed as I drove toward Citam Ngong to join the Men’s Chorale, the 28-year-old singing group I belong to. Bare­ly 150 meters from the church entrance, a matatu in front abrupt­ly stopped, block­ing the road. Shame­less­ly, the con­duc­tor walked straight to a wait­ing police offi­cer and hand­ed him mon­ey — a bla­tant act of cor­rup­tion exe­cut­ed in broad daylight.

Deeply trou­bled, I hoot­ed loud­ly, moved ahead of the matatu, and stopped firm­ly in protest. The police offi­cer approached my car con­fi­dent­ly, salut­ing respect­ful­ly, “Habari Mkub­wa.” Calm­ly yet firm­ly, I con­front­ed him, “Offi­cer, what you’re doing is shame­ful, total­ly unac­cept­able, and one day, it will catch up with you and your fam­i­ly.” Star­tled and ashamed, he stepped back, qui­et­ly respond­ing, “I’m very sor­ry, sir. It won’t hap­pen again.”

But, my greater con­cern was­n’t just the offi­cer’s brazen act; it was the silent com­plic­i­ty of the matatu pas­sen­gers- ordi­nary cit­i­zens- indif­fer­ent to the cor­rup­tion unfold­ing open­ly before them. Lat­er, shar­ing this inci­dent with my choir col­leagues, I was dis­heart­ened to learn, “This hap­pens every day.” When did cor­rup­tion become our normal?

Kenya, which is sta­tis­ti­cal­ly about 80% Chris­t­ian- and more than 11% Mus­lim — pro­fess­es deep faith and strong val­ues. Yet, dai­ly life is rid­dled with cor­rup­tion at every turn, humil­i­at­ing and impov­er­ish­ing God’s peo­ple. Cor­rup­tion in Kenya isn’t mere­ly an admin­is­tra­tive inef­fi­cien­cy; it’s a moral and spir­i­tu­al cri­sis bleed­ing our nation’s future.

Trans­paren­cy International’s 2024 Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index ranked Kenya 121st out of 180 coun­tries, scor­ing only 32 out of 100, reflect­ing a deep-root­ed cor­rup­tion cri­sis. Accord­ing to the Ethics and Anti-Cor­rup­tion Com­mis­sion (EACC), Kenya los­es approx­i­mate­ly KSh 608 bil­lion annu­al­ly to cor­rup­tion, about 8% of the coun­try’s GDP. Our hos­pi­tals lose med­i­cines meant for chil­dren, result­ing in tragedies like that of a young moth­er in rur­al Kenya who recent­ly lost her new­born because essen­tial drugs had van­ished due to cor­rup­tion. Our roads claim lives due to the use of sub­stan­dard mate­ri­als fund­ed by bribes. Schools strug­gle to edu­cate, as funds dis­ap­pear into cor­rupt offi­cials’ pock­ets. Every bribe accept­ed is a life lost, a future stolen.

We recall the 2003 anti-cor­rup­tion wave when Pres­i­dent Kiba­ki gal­va­nized cit­i­zens to active­ly reject cor­rup­tion. Kenyans stood bold­ly against bribery in pub­lic, open­ly con­fronting cor­rupt offi­cers. Sad­ly, that col­lec­tive courage fad­ed, replaced by res­ig­na­tion and pas­sive accep­tance. We are now back to a soci­ety of rent-seek­ers, where bribery per­me­ates every inter­ac­tion, from traf­fic check­points to gov­ern­ment offices.

In the Bible, we read about Jesus’ rad­i­cal con­fronta­tion at the tem­ple. He would nev­er silent­ly tol­er­ate cor­rup­tion. He flipped tables, open­ly rebuk­ing greed and exploita­tion. Even in today’s Kenya, he would­n’t wait for change from above; he would ignite a pow­er­ful moral rev­o­lu­tion from below, empow­er­ing every cit­i­zen to become an active leader and a coura­geous disciple.

Imag­ine such a trans­formed Kenya: teach­ers refus­ing to sell exam papers, nurs­es reject­ing bribes, police offi­cers proud­ly enforc­ing jus­tice with­out com­pro­mise. Change, ignit­ed at the grass­roots, becomes unstop­pable. Mus­lims rec­og­nize Jesus as a prophet of right­eous­ness and integri­ty; his exam­ple tran­scends reli­gious divides.

As I recent­ly shared pub­licly, “This East­er, as Christ rose to give us life, may we rise to give the Earth a future. Let every com­mu­ni­ty res­ur­rect its purpose—to heal, to grow, to pro­tect. For in restor­ing cre­ation, we hon­our the Creator.”

I pas­sion­ate­ly call upon every Kenyan to embody Jesus’s rad­i­cal courage. To our lead­ers in the Exec­u­tive, Judi­cia­ry, Leg­is­la­ture, and reli­gious insti­tu­tions, reflect deeply this East­er and recom­mit to integri­ty and jus­tice. To fam­i­lies, teach hon­esty and integri­ty to your chil­dren as core values.

Kenya’s redemp­tion begins indi­vid­u­al­ly and coura­geous­ly, echo­ing Christ’s bold con­fronta­tion of injus­tice. May this East­er inspire a rev­o­lu­tion of integri­ty, restor­ing dig­ni­ty, sav­ing lives, and secur­ing our shared future. Let each of us answer coura­geous­ly: “What would Jesus do?” Then, let us go and do like­wise. Think green, act green.