A bill now in the Senate will make it illegal to name any road or public building after a living person.
The Street Naming and Property Addressing System Bill will also arrange for every plot on a road to be numbered.
It is absolutely right for no public place to be named after a living person. A living person can go on to do terrible things. With a dead person, we know their entire CV so they cannot spring any surprises on us.
There is no problem with calling the national airport Jomo Kenyatta International Airport because we know all about the first President of Kenya and can make a measured decision over the naming of JKIA.
But with a living person, we don't know what they will go on to do. It may become a national embarrassment. Or in 20 years that person may be considered a nonentity and not worthy of having a road named after him or her.
So the senators should promptly pass this Bill when it comes for its first reading in the Senate. Let only the great and good of past Kenyan history have roads and places named after them.
Quote of the day: "Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act."
Annie Besant
The English theosophist died on September 20, 1933
