People talk about bribery the same way they discuss football scores: casually, loudly, even proudly.
Once upon a regime, yes, in those days there was this Tajiri. You know the type... polished suits, a calm smile, and a way of making even his scandals sound sophisticated.
He had “legitimate businesses” (at least that’s what the papers said) and a very long list of people on his payroll.
Now, some of these people actually worked for him. Others… not so much. The “not directly” ones were in offices, committees, and boards basically the places where decisions are made, rules are bent, and signatures can change your destiny.
The Tajiri paid them to stay quiet, to look away, and to make problems disappear faster than a soda in Dar heat.
When I first heard the story, I laughed. Because honestly isn’t this bribery? Isn’t this corruption? But no one called it that.
They said, “Ah, huyo jamaa ni mjanja. Ana connection.” And just like that, a crime became a skill set.
And that’s exactly where we are as a society, we’ve turned corruption into a soft skill. It’s no longer something shameful; it’s a survival hack.
People talk about bribery the same way they discuss football scores: casually, loudly, even proudly.
Someone gets their passport in two days? “Bwana, I just knew who to talk to.”
Someone skips a traffic fine? “I sorted the officer kidogo.”
Someone’s child gets top marks mysteriously? “Ni Mungu tu!” (Sure, let’s call it divine intervention.)
We laugh, we clap, we move on as if these small acts don’t build the big rot we keep pretending to hate.
The same people who post online about corrupt leaders are the ones handing kitu kidogo at the police checkpoint.
We have double standards so high they could use their own ZIP code.
And here’s the funniest part, we don’t even hide it anymore. Corruption has gone public. It’s discussed in weddings, whispered in churches, and joked about in offices.
We’ve created an entire vocabulary for it...“chai”, “shukrani”, “mambo ya ndani”... We have normalised it to the point that refusing to give a bribe now looks suspicious.
Try doing things the right way, and people will look at you like you’re the problem. “Unataka kuhustle eeh?” they’ll ask, half annoyed, half amused.
We’ve reached a level where integrity is seen as stubbornness, and cheating the system is celebrated as “knowing your way around life”.
But corruption is not some government thing “up there”. It’s us. The daily shortcuts, the small favours, the casual justifications.
We’ve all played our part in building this monster, brick by brick, bribe by bribe.
We say “everyone does it” like it’s a national motto. But the truth is, corruption is a slow poison it doesn’t kill immediately, it just numbs the conscience until wrong starts feeling right.
So yes, maybe the Tajiri in that story was wrong. But so are we, every time we stay silent, every time we look away, and every time we call corruption by a cute name just to feel better about it.
The moment we stop being shocked by corruption is the moment it wins. And maybe that’s already happened because these days, no one even whispers about it anymore. It’s said and done openly, like it’s part of the weather forecast.
But here’s the thing... just because we’ve learnt to live with rot doesn’t mean we should stop cleaning.
