Kisumu City has no water | Change from within.

Compatriots,

Its a fact that water problems in major cities in Kenya including Nairobi is due to high influx of population migrating to the cities and overburdening the cities resources. Also true is that one needs to look at not only the influx of new people in the cities but also the explosion of Kenya's population since independence.

The country's water infrastructure does not grow in accordance with the country's population but above all, the major problem is NEGLECT AND LACK OF WORKING METHODOLOGY AND DYNAMICS AND IN THE CASE OF MOMBASA, ABUSE. This can be aligned to corruption.

Mombasa's water problems started around 1977. I will not go into details but even though I was a kid then, I know what I know. On the Mombasa mainland, there are two parallel water systems. One purely reserved for the Fire Brigade.

If you go to places like Kizingo, have you ever seen a Mhindi's villa or bungalow with dried brown grass because there is no water? But my fellow Africans working with organs of the state are lucky to receive a government pick up and tanks to go and fetch water from Miritini after work.

Its probably a way to keep your subjects so busy looking for means of survival that they have no time to challenge your leadership.

But to say that Kibaki government is denying Kisumu residents some water I want to believe, is a far fetched story. Its not Kibaki who washes matatus, lorries, vans, buses, clothes, utensils, cars, just name it, on the shores of lake Victoria everyday.

But totally innocent, Kibaki cannot be, because he was the architect of Kenya's economic policies since independence and continued to implement those policies for almost 40 years and so he is guilty of many problems we face today indirectly.

The problem in Africa is not only its leaders. Its population is equally guilty like I mentioned in a BBC World Service interview last fall. A leader, many times is a reflective of the society and Kibaki is not different.

If the people of Kisumu really want to manage their city well, then I don't see why they should be looking at Kibaki. Kenyatta failed them and Moi did not make things better for them so will Kibaki really be their messiah?

Africans, real change must come from within. Not from your wife, husband, mother, father, brother or friend. You must change your attitude first. I was born in a economically marginalized family and in my teens, I used to enjoy life in Nairobi and Mombasa, going from Toyz, Salambo to Florida 2000 and if any of you remember the days of Tiffany's at Ambalal House basement.

But today I work 12 hrs a day, hoping from city to city and many times across boarders. Not insignificant.

-James