God Help Us If We Still Don't Know The Kenya We Want

A conference on the Kenya we want?

This should have been a grand idea just shortly before independence. At that time, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi and other Kenyan freedom fighters should have gone around the nation seeking opinion on the Kenya Kenyans wanted. As a matter of fact, they did. They went around the nation listening to the humiliating stories Kenyans had to tell about working as servants in white homes and fields, caring for the brutish children of Asians who called grown men "boyi", and toiled in their own little shambas that never yielded food enough to feed their perpetually threatened families. After listening to the anguish of fellow Kenyans, these leaders acted. They mobilized the folks and took back this nation from the colonialists.

Our founding fathers' goals were not grand by any stretch of the imagination. They wanted to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease. That these three goals have not been met...and seem to have exponentially grown...is testament to the fact that our post-independence leaders have failed to lead this nation. How do we expalain the fact that while Kenyans have sank deeper into poverty, the Mois, the Kenyattas, the Odingas and the Kibakis have grown wealthier in equal measure? And how is it that while Kenyans are today going hungry we are learning daily of the culpability of men like Ruto and Fidel in causing the biting maize problem? Still, how are we to explain the fact that while most Kenyans can't afford insurance and are saddled with crushing medical bills, our leaders are healthy, overfed and boast some of the grandest perks in the world?

The Kenya we want?

Who the hell came up with this idea? When Kibaki campaigned last year, was he campaigning without a vision for Kenya? Did Raila campaign without knowing where he wanted to take this nation? And did Kalonzo Musyoka promise to do A and B and C for Kenyans without knowing what we wanted? Or is this just our leaders' way of telling us that they've been so disconected from the rest of us...that they have no clue what we want? These guys never cease to amaze me.

But this I must say. That if after all these years these folks don't know what we want, they have no business leading us. If they truly wanted to know what Kenyans want they didn't have to call in Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim and Renneberger and Lidner and the bunch of Cabinet ministers and our don't-give-a-damn MPs to that forum. What they needed to do was go to the people. They should have gone to Kibera, Nyeri, Kisumu, Chavakali, Voi, Lodwar and other towns across this nation. Or better still, why not look at the face of that starving, crying woman on the frontpage of the Standard newspaper or the traumatizing pictures of fellow Kenyans burning to death at Sachangwan just to fetch some gas/petrol that might be sold so food can be put on the table?

The Kenya we want?

Bullshit.

All I know is that the Kenya we want has no place for clueless men like Kibaki, Raila, Musyoka, Uhuru, Ruto and the band of MPs who have lost touch with their constituents. Next time they call a conference like this, they will find better answers if they can hold it in Berlin or Toronto. Why? Because rather than make the dignitaries from around the globe come here to tell us what kind of Kenya we want, why not make it easy on them and go to the counties they live in?

Listen...

Kenyans know the Kenya they want. Just wait till 2012. You will see!