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!
Thursday, February 05, 2009
The Kenya We Never Wanted, Don't Need
The talking shop is busting at the seams with scoundrels waxing philosophical with cheap advice they never practiced. Listening to the former president acting a sage with all prescription for ailing Kenya amounted to insulting the intelligence of all Kenyans.
First give credit to Lucifer for never disappointing. The present spate of mega corruption makes Uncle Dan look like a saint. And Boy the old man from Sacho was in good company. He must have been smiling from ear to ear seeing his political students almost outdoing him in re-inventing a wheel that is not even round in shape.
Moi’s analogy of the presidency being a bus driver having a plethora of pick pockets aboard is symptomatic of how simplistic our leadership view weighty matters of governance. And please save your breath in justify the same mediocrity with such platitudes as effective communication. This was a conference at KICC and not another barasa in Rongai.
The Kenya we want conference may have been convened with all the good intention but has unfortunately degenerated to the predictable talk shop Kenyans are unrivalled about. We are not kissing the bottom of political and economical pit because of lack of glossy and buzzword-filled white papers. We have them in plenty populating dusty government offices all over.
Until such a time we collectively and individually free ourselves from living the NATIONAL LIE of charades packaged as blue prints, we will enjoy the beauty of every floor on our way down oblivious of the hard pavement waiting to kiss our skull at the base. With no moral ground to point a finger at anybody the chief executive has no choice but to preside over the EXECUTIVE FRAUD in almost every ministry.
Coloured charade
The thinly-veiled cover of security in numbers has been met and it is crunch time for ministers to feather their nests with every fabric leaving Kenyans smarting and dying from famine. Fearful of the radically different next political dispensation, the fathers of corruption and Kenyan gate keepers are looting anything within our borders.
The Kenya we want conference is just another of those gimmicks designed to create impression of motion with no actual movement. We are stuck in a rut and at the mercy of the scavengers as they cycle carcass Kenya.
Failure and refusal to break from our ruinous past makes the likes of Moi chest-thumb while feeling prophetic and relevant with all solutions to problems they shamelessly created while in office. Looking for any cow still standing to milk, it will come as no surprise if the KICC conference won’t turn into another cash cow. If Balala, Ruto and Kiraitu did it successfully in their dockets why not spread the wealth around?
First give credit to Lucifer for never disappointing. The present spate of mega corruption makes Uncle Dan look like a saint. And Boy the old man from Sacho was in good company. He must have been smiling from ear to ear seeing his political students almost outdoing him in re-inventing a wheel that is not even round in shape.
Moi’s analogy of the presidency being a bus driver having a plethora of pick pockets aboard is symptomatic of how simplistic our leadership view weighty matters of governance. And please save your breath in justify the same mediocrity with such platitudes as effective communication. This was a conference at KICC and not another barasa in Rongai.
The Kenya we want conference may have been convened with all the good intention but has unfortunately degenerated to the predictable talk shop Kenyans are unrivalled about. We are not kissing the bottom of political and economical pit because of lack of glossy and buzzword-filled white papers. We have them in plenty populating dusty government offices all over.
Until such a time we collectively and individually free ourselves from living the NATIONAL LIE of charades packaged as blue prints, we will enjoy the beauty of every floor on our way down oblivious of the hard pavement waiting to kiss our skull at the base. With no moral ground to point a finger at anybody the chief executive has no choice but to preside over the EXECUTIVE FRAUD in almost every ministry.
Coloured charade
The thinly-veiled cover of security in numbers has been met and it is crunch time for ministers to feather their nests with every fabric leaving Kenyans smarting and dying from famine. Fearful of the radically different next political dispensation, the fathers of corruption and Kenyan gate keepers are looting anything within our borders.
The Kenya we want conference is just another of those gimmicks designed to create impression of motion with no actual movement. We are stuck in a rut and at the mercy of the scavengers as they cycle carcass Kenya.
Failure and refusal to break from our ruinous past makes the likes of Moi chest-thumb while feeling prophetic and relevant with all solutions to problems they shamelessly created while in office. Looking for any cow still standing to milk, it will come as no surprise if the KICC conference won’t turn into another cash cow. If Balala, Ruto and Kiraitu did it successfully in their dockets why not spread the wealth around?
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