Few Kenyan politicians can be described as role models. Good people hardly get elected. Politicians of dubious character splurge money on voters to win seats. 

Politics is never about service to the people. It is rather a means to either amass wealth or cover up the proceeds of crime through proximity to power.

Unemployed youth have resorted to breaking and stealing from shops because State officials have turned public offices into looting grounds. Public institutions – including State House – have become scenes of crime.

Because of their behaviour, politicians have irredeemably denied themselves the moral authority to correct other members of society.  

Our Parliament is full of ne’er-do-well charlatans dangerously ill-equipped for the roles assigned to them.  

Their hollowness gets manifested at the public stage through half-educated reasoning and bad manners captured in high-octane vulgar speeches.

It is disturbing that their speeches are receiving good cheer from “right-thinking” Kenyans.

Lately, politicians are taking to the stump to spew garbage and highly sexualised messages.  

One wonders whether our so-called leaders have anything between their ears. 

There ought to be a strong nexus between leadership and demonstrable responsibility. It is hard to discern such a relationship among our politicians.

Yet they expect other Kenyans, especially young people, to listen to them. They continue to cling to old-fashioned demands for blind obedience to authority and respect for age.

They are unable to listen to emerging young voices cautioning against the public display of indiscipline.

Voices reminding them of the letter and spirit of Article 1 of the Constitution, which vests all sovereign power with the people who elected them.  

Voices that are telling them to respect and serve constituents, who are their ultimate employers. Even more dangerous is the damage the vulgar politicians are causing to children. 

As Moffat Mshauri, a leading psychologist and family therapist, cautioned in PD Wikendi, our children are listening and watching.

When leadership is reduced to bedroom metaphors and vulgar jokes, we do not only trivialise our democracy, we poison the moral fabric of the next generation.  

“What seed are we planting in the tender hearts of our children when parliamentary microphones, rallies, and national addresses become arenas for public indecency?”  We will not hesitate from naming and shaming foul-mouthed “leaders”.