Focus on the small things to reach Singapore
Opinion
By
Mutahi Mureithi
| Dec 21, 2025
This Singapore thing: I think (and I hope I am wrong) we are over-reaching ourselves. Not to be a wet sponge but the reality is we are not making any progress, except yapping incessantly about this far-fetched utopia.
It is good to dream but we should not confuse dreams with reality.
The truth is, as a country, we have been running on the spot, sweating buckets but having zero movement.
I have read and re-read the tome by Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore (from Third to First World) and I can’t see a thing we are doing towards first world status.
In fact, sometimes we make two steps forward and three backwards, like the perpetually drunk uncle who takes a whole night staggering on the path towards his house but ends up spending the night in a ditch. I am not that pessimistic. I am a realist.
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I visited Singapore years back and even then, you could tell they had a sense of purpose, a belief in the system that held the country together.
They have always had strict - some might even call them petty - laws about everything, including one that banned chewing gum.
It is such edicts that instill a sense of discipline in a community. Here, you drive on the highways and you see big men in big cars casually throwing beer and soda cans out of the window. And their family in the back seat follow suit, throwing all manner of trash.
Development is not about modern buildings with a glass facade, or good roads. It is a state of mind. It is how the people relate with each other and with the laws, written and unwritten.
Sometimes, I laugh when I see billboards on the highway warning against littering, reminding motorists that the fine is Sh50,000.
The only beneficiary of these notices are the billboard owners. I would like to challenge those in authority to show me one person who has ever been fined for littering along the highway.
Like Mr Grimwig - a Dickensian character - loved saying if anyone provides me with this proof, I will gladly chew my own head.
Look at the state of our policing. The other day, the car we were using with a buddy broke down and I had to take public transport from Nanyuki to Nakuru.
The driver was stopped by traffic cops about five or so times along the way. On all these stops, the driver and the cops did not exchange greetings or look each other in the eye.
The cops never even pretended to check whether the insurance was valid, or whether the matatu’s tyres are worn out, whether the speed governor is working (it wasn’t). No.
It was a simple transaction that involved the driver slowing down, barely stopping, extending his clenched fist to the policeman, exchanged some cash and off we went.
There was no attempt to hide what was going on from the passengers. This is not the route to first world. It is more of a route to anarchy. Look at our leadership. A good majority are unreformed felons. There is even a certain governor supposed to be dead, having run away from his criminal past in a foreign country.
Nobody has ever thought of taking to him to task, perhaps because they might be afraid of dealing with the dead.
In Kenya, we still have people living in mud huts. We have majority who have no idea of running water. And we are not talking about those living in the middle of nowhere; we are talking about people within our cities.
I recently saw some kids barely ten kilometres from Nakuru CBD carrying huge loads of firewood and others fetching water with jerrycans from God knows where.
I have said it before and I say it again: I suggest all these chaps first read Yew’s book, and then we can start talking about transiting, to second world, leave alone first world.
The writer is a communication consultant