Degree Necessary, not Sufficient for Leadership

The debate has grown legs of its own and Kenyans are livid with both consternation and rage. Should an MP be a university graduate? That is the big question.

A degree may be a necessary but not suffcient qualification for leadership. True, there is more to education than just being learned. You see a degree can be either a blessing for an enriched grey matter as well as a curse for a selfish, closed or sadistic mind.

Granted formal education is not to acquire mere papers, it is being trained to think, to provide a cognitive sheen to the basic affective and psychomotor skiils. But therein lies the paradox as evident from the many degree holders in the present Parliament which, unfortunately, is inversely proportional to the qualifty of both their debates and leadership.

So we have been told more than 80% of the present MPs have rendered themselves jobless by passing the Bill pegging their candidature on degree qualification.

Critics of the Bill have given examples of great leaders who where school dropouts like the late British wartime Premier Winston Churchill and even Microsoft owner Bill Gates himself. While they may consider that comparison clever, it is no brainer comparing oranges and apples.

One can also drop the ERROR that was Moi to advance the need for higher educational qualification for leadership. But on the flipside an inquisitive mind will also not fail to mention the ruin caused by one Dr Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Maina Njenga

Give it to Amos Kimunya. The Minister for Transport is not only a brilliant accountant but a smart politician to boot. He knew when to hit hardest where it hurts and matters most. With one genius stroke he delivered to Uhuru Kenyatta the greatest of political favours none of the UK's cheerleaders would manage with their turbo charged mandibles.

You see the degree qualification would effortlessly condemn the ex-Mungiki leader Maina Njenga to political Siberia. What a genius?

So while the voluble Chepalungu MP would want to elevate Parliament constituted by graduates to a senior common room of dons, passing the Bill without scrutiny exposed the MPs soft intellectual underbelly. The MPigs dread the fangs of the ghost they failed to exorcize.

The naked and bitter truth is that Bills are written in English and so do most technical deliberations in Parliamentary committees. While populism can afford the likes of Sonko to get away with Sheng, you don't need to hazard any guess on the values such characters add to Parliamentary debates. I guess their contributions may be most useful in the catering committee.

Even Raila's criticism while hiding under vouching for the youth smacks of cheap populism. True, most university students graduate when they are past the age of 22. But what would make somebody barely out of his teens seek an elective post instead of work hard to shape both his career and future? It must be the height of naivity to regard Parliament as a dependable and exclusive employment bureau.

The present degree debate exposes the rot that engulfs the Kenya's fabric. People look at leadership as means to an end (read grab public wealth) and not as service to voters. The rich and functionally illiterate leaders also suffer from the mortal fear of the schooled. It must be very quite easy leading a functionally illiterate populace.