Look at Khadija Riyami. She’s standing outside the Nairobi Funeral Home like she’s in a trance, but we all know that look. It’s the “Welcome to Kenya” stare. Her husband, Vincent Ayomo, was just a 28-year-old mechanic trying to make ends meet in Kitengela. He left for work on a Sunday and came back with a bullet hole where his left eye used to be. One minute you’re worrying about the price of unga, the next you’re a widow with a one-and-a-half-year-old and a morgue bill you can’t afford.

It’s the same old song I’ve been humming for years. As I’ve said before, Love is a Death Sentence in the 254: 1,069 Reasons to Stay Single. Why even bother starting a family or building a life when the state views your existence as less valuable than a politician’s fuel allowance? Vincent wasn’t a criminal; he was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time - which, in Nairobi, is basically everywhere.

Then you have the likes of Murkomen casually admitting that sitting MPs own gangs and goons. No kidding, Bwana Waziri. We’ve seen them. They aren’t “youth groups”; they’re private militias for the elite, used to settle scores while the rest of us duck for cover. These big men play with our lives like it’s a game of FIFA, and when the whistle blows, it’s always the common man who’s out of the tournament. They tell the masses their future is in “unity and population,” which is just code for “give us more voters to exploit and more bodies for the front lines.”

Take the Witima Anglican Church violence. It’s been a week, and the police haven’t even bothered to clear their throats, let alone make an arrest. In this country, if you commit a crime under a steeple or a political banner, you’re basically untouchable. We’re out here like the Byzantines, waiting for an angel to descend and save the “Hagia Sophia” of our political icons, but the only thing descending on Nairobi is more grief and the heavy smell of formaldehyde.

Stop waiting for a prophecy or a politician to save you. The only angel you’ll see in Nairobi is the one carved on a cheap tombstone. We are living in a meat grinder where the gears are greased by the blood of mechanics and the silence of the law. If you’re still looking for justice, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the way this city operates.