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Fellow Kenyans, countrymen, lend me your ears and please leave your hearts out of this weighty matter before us.
Let us start with the facts. Tony Blair took over as Prime Minister of one of the major Western powers of this planet in 1994 when he was a tender 41 years old. Looking at his tenure and even despite criticism, he has done a reasonably good job. Mr Blair is now retired at the age of 54. That age in Kenya is way too young to become president.
Bill Clinton was 47 when he was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the most powerful nation on earth in 1993. To date he is one of the most successful democratic party presidents in the history of
This November 15th Mwai Kibaki, baptized Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries (but he never uses those names), will be 76. If elected to another term as President of an almost obscure 3rd world country, he will complete that second term at the age of 81. Age is nothing but a number, but surely@#! Assuming that we do this thing the Kenyan way where the presidency is some sort of monarchy that hands down power to the VP (that’s why George Saitoti was so angry that Moi did not hand over the presidency) then Moody Awori should expect to receive the instruments of power in 2012. He will be a “youthful” 85 years old.
Raila Amolo Odinga who many believe is...
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Nice pitch Chris. One thing for sure is the fact that these dinosaurs' time is long over due. We seem to be an unofficial monarchy of sorts. As to whether we lack of political enthusiasm among our young lot is comparable to the money markers in the business world (DN 21/07/07) that I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteThe coorporate ladder has steps and no jumping the queue unlike politics which is nothing but a game. Even worse the game has no rule and is exclusively premised on the possible. It takes head and heart of steel to plunge in and plunge we must now and never tomorrow. But are we upto scratch? The jury was out, came back undecided still waiting.
Thank you kumekucha for that well written post. As usual I am taking the opposite half of the field, In other words I am asking to be allowed to trash the well written but very misleading piece.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all Gordon Brown, the current prime minister of Brit'n took over at 56 and the below average George bush took over aged 54. It would make slightly more sense if you wanted us to consider the ages of the current leaders of these two contries, but as i said that would still be some slight sense. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are in my opinion some of the best leaders the world has ever seen but using the ages of only two leaders to determine the standard age of presidents is what Taabu would call biased estimation.
It would have made more sense if you gave us the average ages of British prime ministers or American presidents as the ideal ages of presidents at inaguration. The average age of American presidents is 54.8 years. Call it 55. The cases of Blair and Clinton are what we call in statistical quarters 'outliers'. The mean age makes more sense unless you have very concrete evidence that these two were the very best performers of all times.
I strongly believe that age has absolutely nothing to do with someone's ability to lead a nation. The current crappy requirement of a minimum of 35years should be abolished like today. The subscribers of a certain political ideology in Kenya have consistently chosen to be petty in their assesment of what political path we should take. They have called Mwai kibaki 'ailing and tired' just because he is slightly older than the person they support. We all know what the lead article at kumekucha would be every single day if Raila Odinga was say 53. We would all be lectured on how 62 year olds are senile but because that's the age of the political messiah then we shift the goal post of being 'senile' to 76. When we are tempted to admit that 62 is also too old, we refuse to do that but we choose to go back 10 years so that we capture every single real competitor. That is cheap. I would be happy if we judged presidential candidates not based on their ages but their characters. Attempting to throw stones when we live in glass houses is exposing our folly far too much.
Of course no American president ever assumed office at 71 like Kibaki. But we should also not be blind to the fact that only 4 (outliers) out of the 43 (44 counting Hillary)presidents were older than Raila today is. The majority have of course been older than Kalonzo by a year or so. If age is a factor (And i refuse to believe it is) and assuming we continue to believe Nairobi should always copy what London and Washington do then Kalonzo is the man. I know how cheap this sounds but how else do u respond to a cheap article?
kumekucha i suggest a name change ofthis blog to vikiitabuchris.com.where are other opinions we all know your leanings and its getting old.
ReplyDeleteIn the recent past, I've been overly angry at Western media for its negativity when it comes to covering African countries or issues. Couldn't believe I was reading from Kumekucha a description of Kenya as ...'an almost obscure 3rd world country'.....If you don't believe in Kenya, who will? Kenya may be in the 3rd world, but no, its not almost obscure. Dude, hata kama ni siasa!
ReplyDeleteThe issue of age is contentious but don't you go quoting some people as examples in leadership simply because they were 'young'. I personally don't care how young your Western role models (role models, ha! ha!) are. I think we are experiencing a return to old time African leadership-ever heard of a council of elders?? Penye wazee hapaharibiki neno, wahenga wakasema.Its about time we stopped the manipulation from your role models, some of whom have 'resigned' as failures, and others who have failed not only their countries but the entire world.
That was a dress down Chris from Anon and I hope you still remain with some of your garments on. National pride and patriotism are two words that are often obtusely misused. The similarity may begin and end at the first letter.
ReplyDeleteWe have been that side of the road before propelled by one Dan Moi that you love your country. But I hope that is not menat to mean close your eyes to rot, or does it?
Yes we might be back to 'good old days' but if the Kenyan version of mzee is a 30 something rich dude being revered as mzee, then I would flush that pride down the loo any minute. Fuguratively that is what hollow pride and patriostim amounts to.
Wahenga can say anything and that is why they have saying to suite every occassion and mostly conflicting like haraka haraka ... then turn to ngoja ngoja....You can mouth anything and justify with wahenga but in my book they are smart waropokaji.
We love Kenya and will spot all her warts. That is no disrespect. The Western media have no monopoly to criticize we can do it about ourselves too, ama what do you think good Kenyans out there? Long live Kenya and may the dinosaurs meet self-attrite soonest.
Now take a comment like this one;
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
kumekucha i suggest a name change ofthis blog to vikiitabuchris.com.where are other opinions we all know your leanings and its getting old.
When the views in a blog are boring the sensible thing is to move elsewhere. Now why would somebody want to discredit the blog in this way? Unless of course they are a paid hand out to do some dsamage control for thewir master.
Guys look out for these kind of comments. Am tracing all of them now and will tell you about them later.
By the way it is very rare for Vikii, Taabu and Chris to all agree. It seems anon here doesn't even read this blog.
Just preparing all you guys. It is about to get very ugly, buty vtake heart WE WILL PREVAIL.
-Kumekucha-
I agree Chris. I belive that these mail can be tracked the perpatrators named and shamed. Anyway, as you say, we should be prepared for the worst. I dont praise you, but I believe in fairness and you have demonstrated a saying that 'What is good for the Goose is Good for the Goose'. Take heart. The fight will be won.
ReplyDeleteAppalling, is it?
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Please not anomaly in my post above. Pole majamaa
ReplyDeleteThis post ilijaa agism na tribalism mob.Kama watu wanataka baba ya babu yao, why not? Let the people decide. At last check that was my general understanding of democracy. Kwa nini every time all your bad examples happen to be Kikuyus, while the only person who secures some form praise, no matter the topic, is Raila???FYI, John Githongo and KJ (these are celebs, Kenyan style) are Kikuyus.At least KJ has helped register more than 2 million youth as voters for this year's election with his Vijana Tugutuke, ni Time Yetu slogan, wewe je? Githongo alitoboa makosa ya Kibaki. I think the only reason they qualify to be 'jokers' is that they are Kikuyu, and hiyo ni mavi ya ng'ombe, bull shit. Me, I'm still not fooled, I think wewe ni nyundo ya Raila ya kupigia yeye debe.
ReplyDeleteKwa nini unavamia watu binafsi kama mathreats za kutoboa hadharani identity yao. By the way, by all means go for it.Once you are in the blogosphere, you are out in the open and need to accept criticism.Kwa nini you go by fake names yourself?No wonder hii blog imebaki na wewe, Taabu, Vikii, Phil Derek na some Anons. Na mimi wa kusoma. I can predict Taabu and Phil will have ready supportive responses before you post your next entry, Vikii will likely oppose, and some Anons will support and a few oppose. I think some people should post more as Anon and support you, that way, you can have the perfect blog.Wacha kuintimidate watu ati na vile umetrace IP addresses zao Nairobi (I don't believe you. I even thought you were not gonna hint on where you live for 'security' reasons).
Anyway, its a free country, you gave people a chance to express themselves, let it be, au sio!
Chris i think you are just being paranoid ,i posted that comment and if you stand for free speech then you should be able to accept criticism,i did not mean that you agree on everything but we know who supports raila , who does kibaki , kalonzo and githongo respectively.Iam just a regular guy and have no intrest , capability nor intentions of harming you or your blog , i also happen to enjoy alot of the commentaries here especily taabus , he is one knowlegble fellow .So dont think every critic is a spy or enemy of some sorts.Being able to publish my uncensored thoughts is the joy of blogging.Ps please open a discussion to critique the article on the economist titled Kenya: Going up or Down objectively thanks .
ReplyDeleteyours truly
Anon.