Thoughtlessness, Indecisiveness and Downright Incompetence: The Qualities we, Kenyans, Look for in a Leader

Also published earlier today by Chris Why Snap Elections are Inevitable

By Mwalimu Peter Ngugi

Kenya is indeed a strange country. It is a country where leaders are elected on the basis of their thoughtlessness and sheer incompetence. And this has been the trend since we attained independence. ‘ We seem to cherish leaders who have perfected ‘the art and science of brewing hatred and preaching politics of division and parochialism.’ And unless we wake up and fight to invalidate the stupid value systems which have been entrenched in our politics by selfish and thoughtless politicians, our country will go to the dogs (if it hasn't already!) and we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

I have been watching the political scene since the formation of the so called Grand Coalition but nothing seems to be moving. Service delivery, internal security and all have become foreign ideologies. Politicians have been spending most of their time grumbling and scrambling for power as the citizenry gets more impoverished by the minute. I hoped against all hopes that the government would act speedily on important issues like drafting a new constitution, waging a spirited war against poverty and corruption and building an egalitarian society where people would be treated equally irrespective of their political and ethnic affiliation. But how wrong I was!

Therefore, it is unlikely that the current crop of parliamentarians will draft a new constitution any time soon because the political engineers from either side of the political divide (read the Grand Confusion) are either thoughtless or downright incompetent. In my view, most of the current members of parliament are unfit to hold any position of leadership, even at the family level! All they do is fight to fill their tumbo kubwa as the majority of us wallow in abject poverty. Remember the William-Ruto–motion-of-censure circus? It is good case in point that demonstrates that our MPs only care about their interests and those of their cronies. And this vividly elucidates why MPs chose their allegiances not purely on the merit of the motion but on selfish considerations ranging from the premature positioning of some leaders in the battle to succeed President Kibaki to an almost blood cuddling zeal to prevent the Orange Party from disintegrating.

My fellow country men and women, politicians don’t care whether you live or starve to death; their only object is to keep you and I very busy fighting among ourselves over parochial things as they milk the country dry. And that is why there is a grand rift in the so called grand coalition. Politicians are busy forming alliances and thoughtless schemes to succeed Kibaki. The censure motion against Ruto was defeated because the majority of our parliamentarians are too unprincipled and unpatriotic to fight for the welfare of the millions of starving Kenyans. To paraphrase Dr Bonny Khalwale, the mover of the censure motion against Ruto: ‘ The vote on the censure motion was between selfish politicians and millions of famished Kenyans.’ Everybody knows who won.

I assert that most Kenyan politicians are inherently tribal, selfish and parochial and are thus incapable of putting the interests of their country before their own. They have got no time to fritter away thinking about the plight of the internally displaced people or those who live in fear of being harassed, maimed and killed by members of a proscribed cult(Mungiki). Are these the people we expect to draft a good constitution for us?

Whining about bad governance, corruption and tribalism will not take us anywhere. We have got to change the situation. The power belongs to us. We can bring change, yes we can! It begins with you; are you ready to stand and be counted?

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