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Some 2000 years ago, a contemptuous inquiry on the honour of Nazareth is recorded in the book of John: “And Nathaniel said to Phillip, ‘can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Phillip said: ‘Come and see.’
Nathaniel’s inquiry can be equated to Kenya’s asking: “Is there anything good that can come out of President Kibaki’s Administration, the ninth parliament and Kenya in general?”
In order to check on the validity of this question, we ought to stop and look at our past track, where we are standing and in what direction we are moving.
The history of the last 16 years of the second liberation has been divided into two concepts: integration and human rights.
During the struggle for the freedom we are currently enjoying, our leaders clamoured for an open and democratic space. It was a period during which Kenyans yearned to have constitutionally enshrined rights that had been locked up with chains with the key thrown into a crocodile infested river. Many Kenyans lost their lives and dignity in the name of democracy. We saw doctors, academicians, financiers and businesspeople running away from their own country to seek asylum in other countries as exiles. The second liberation was indeed more painful and heart rending than the 1960s struggle for independence. Why? The independence liberation was strategically created with the aim of reclaiming back the rights forcefully taken from us by the colonizers. The colonizer was a foreigner claiming legitimacy over the running of the affairs of Kenya.
The second liberation on the other hand, was against laws borrowed from the colonizer by the African-run government. This was coupled with tribalism, ethnicity, regionalism, political affiliations etc.
Finally, rain did come, but has since started beating down on us. When President Kibaki took over the leadership of Kenya, as the third president, we sighed with relief – our prayers had been finally answered. Everybody was shouting with joy, ululating to the highest pitch ever because Kibaki is a person whose leadership qualities are incomparable. We joyously held our arms and quickly said yote yawezekana (all is possible). But was it really the right time to sing out in that manner? And since Kibaki has been accredited with being an economist of many years standing, what went wrong? Things started going haywire when we forgot our past, and focused on moving against the tides and principles of human rights. Our leaders, whom we voted for with many expectations, drugged us with seeds of lies, hatred, mistrust and pretence. Instead of seeing fruits of virtues, they misused our friendly Kenyan attitude in the name of fighting for our rights. We were drugged with a misconception of integration as a way forward. Instead of telling us to make our rights a reality, or leading us in the pursuit of excellence, they led us in the sterile chase of an integrated thinking as an end rather than a means of freeing us. When, for instance, the now obsolete controversial Memorandum of Understanding between Kibaki and Raila was signed, it was not open for the public to scrutinize. As the electorate, we should have been given a first hand in determining its validity instead of being held at ransom by being told, “we unanimously agree to…”
We are therefore made to frame and believe that President Kibaki is Judas yet the majority of Kenyans save for the few around then, can claim to be privy of the contents of the MoU. As a result of this, ours became an integration of intellectual mediocrity, economic inferiority and political subservience. Like young children, we feared eating the rough meat of human rights and instead, sucked the milk of our leaders’ lies and believed in the ideals in totality without questions. We believed that by electing intellectuals, economists, mathematicians, doctors and professors, we were doing ourselves some good. Instead of them making good use of their intellectualism, they betrayed us by increasing their allowances for little or no work done, failing to vote on crucial votes in parliament, corruption, infighting amongst themselves and not honouring God as the sole provider of leadership.
Still, we sat down waiting for God to come and rescue us. We just folded our arms and said “Kenyans are peace loving” and contemptuously wore a veil of ignorance. They quickly acknowledged that the democratic space has been opened for all to enjoy. Human rights, which they made us believe they were fighting for, are God-made; democracy is human-made. The kind of democratic space we are enjoying has been a grand deception practiced by those who have not placed God first. Demanding these rights is to seek God’s intervention into our political, psychological, cultural, social, biological and economic lifestyles.
After getting in power leaders became more arrogant, selfish and greedy. Those who spoke with agitation against the oppressor became silent – not willing to identify themselves with the oppressed. The oppressed turned to God for solace and tranquility.
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Writer Profile
Mbũrũ
I am a researcher on educational issues especially in the rural areas, with much emphasis on girls' education.
As a trained journalist, I have a lot of concern with the handling of the education sub-sector in Kenya and take a critical role in viewing the reforms currently being conducted to integrate education structures for the sake of the youth in Kenya.
One major aspect, sadly, is that Kenya has been sovereign for over four decades but has been the only African country besides Somalia not to have made education compulsory, free and basic. For Somalia it can be understood - the country had been in civil strife since 1992- but for Kenya the politics of the day have played a negative role in reducing the promotion of education to a system sheer competition, instead of progressive
Apart from that, I write fictitious literature.
Currently I am working on prose on love and betrayal and a collection of poems.
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Comments
Can anthing good come out of them? Eugenia Bivines | Sep 9th, 2006
Very, very good article. Yes, You - the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. Keep the faith and keep pressing on - A change will come.
PRINCE WILLIS OMONDI | Sep 22nd, 2006
As long as there is no clear vision of leadership,no better fruits can be harvested.The leaders of today cannot produce good results.
Until leaders realize how to leadd with unselfish hearts.Generations will still live such a rotten governance.
What we need is a proper renewal of ourselves before seeking any leadershi.A good leader is one who leads by the people of the people
Good points R Kahendi | Jan 5th, 2007
Very nice piece, Solomon. Something to think about.
The only way to improve our crop of leaders is to improve ourselves as a people. I think our (Kenyan) leaders reflect all that is good and bad within our culture.
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