Were it not that we have been here many times before, I would have finally said hallelujah in praise of the ongoing purge of illicit drugs and alcohol in the country.

But not so fast! The renewed fight has echoes of past regimes, whose crackdown on these menaces amounted to nought.

The current fight appears like a multi-pronged attack led by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki. The duo has been moving around the country mobilising State machinery to rout out the alleged drug dealers and the concocters of dangerously adulterated alcoholic drinks.

Very well. However, I ask, yet again, who’s fooling who? Let us start with alcohol. Adulterated alcohol has been a problem particularly in Mt Kenya region for the last couple of decades.

For you to understand the magnitude of this menace, think the fact that the former two presidents, Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta, were squarely from two of the major towns in the region, Nyeri and Kiambu.

If it was a walkover, one would have expected, of all people, for instance, former no-nonsense Internal Security Minsters John Michuki and Fred Matiang’i to have wiped out this menace from the backyard of their bosses. For some reason, the duo was able to manage rampant insecurity, but seemed inept at combating illicit brews and narcotics from our midst.

I leave you to deduce the probable reasons. Let us move on fast to narcotics. Again, successive presidents after Daniel arap Moi were unable to wipe out the nuisance.

In the early stages of his presidency, Kenyatta made a big deal by blowing up a ship loaded with drugs in Mombasa as a way of stamping his authority against the miscreants. But as we all know, this was the last we heard of his bravado against drugs.

Big names have been bandied in the drugs trade, but no one has had the balls to put them behind bars. Recently, there was a trending clip of an influential Rift Valley politician calling out former Mombasa Governor for alleged drug dealing and putting the future of thousands of youth in jeopardy.

The Rift guy is very close to power, and so he has access to classified information. Suffice it to say, “hao wanajuana” – the two know each other.

You can go on and on about apparent official inertia in reigning in Kenya’s mafiosi. It simply means that they are truly “The Untouchables”, reminiscent of the 1987 blockbuster starring mobster Al Capone in the 1930s Chicago in the United States. As we are wont to say of an impossible task, this is a live wire; step on it at your own peril.

But let’s not continue shedding crocodile tears. Almost everything in Kenya is now counterfeit, starting from our interpersonal relationships, fast moving consumer goods, religion, education, infrastructure, seeds, fertiliser, medicines et al. We are all thriving from illegalities, and thus may not be righteous to throw the first stone at our national harlots.

Breathing fire to the mafia will simply not do. We need a new sheriff in town, like Eliot Ness and his team of federal agents who brought Al Capone to justice. He must be ready to be martyred by the goons, but go down with all of them.

Ultimately, these deadly stuff is killing a certain demographic, either deliberately or inadvertently. Our youth have become highly vulnerable from the vices in this country. It is now parents increasingly burying their offspring, rather than the traditional way.

As you read this, I am attending the burial of my nephew who was hit by a car last week at nightfall along Thika Road under the bridge crossing to Vincentian Fathers Retreat Centre.

Apparently, he was avoiding using the bridge due to muggers. Just one of a thousand ways to die here.

—The writer is a PhD candidate in international relations