re: The President Kenya deserves; Peter Okelo

Peter Okelo has raised the bar, more factually and intellectually, and I must bring it down to the voters. In his analysis, Peter has risen above the tribe, and positively dissected what ails our presidency.

44 years into Independence, are we done with the four issues that so affected our fathers, that so drove them hard into fighting for self rule? Issues of illiteracy, poverty, disease and shelter, leave alone national cohesion?

Are these issues that defy tackling and solving? Can they not be addressed and solved 44 years down the line?

In trying to answer these questions, Kenyans must of necessity look at the person and the power of the institution of the presidency.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was there and instead of tackling the national issues, asked a bewildered Bildad Kagia what Independence had done for him, why he could not smell the coffee and join in the looting of Kenya. We lost the national goals in the words and actions of the founding father of the nation and Independent Kenya.

This was a deliberate erosion of the presidency, and the first sin has followed the next two presidents who ably served under Mzee Kenyatta. Being good students, Moi and Kibaki did not have the moral courage to do otherwise; they had to follow in the footsteps of their mentor.

There was an attempt at fighting illiteracy by instituting quality education in select few educational institutions. Quality of exams and candidates was never tempered with. The best brains always carried the day then, and our form four drop outs were of real quality. Your name did not matter, your brain did.

Then Moi came in and with his district focus for rural development, even the quality of education shifted and was focused as well back to rural development. The focus shifted from the brain to the person. The brain did not matter, the person did.

We started going on the downward path when people who had failed all simple exams started buying their ways into the world of academia. Kenya instead of tackling illiteracy became saddled with degree holders who could not speak nor write in the English language, in Kiswahili, nor in their mother tongue. We started seeing an age where graduates upon being employed, had to wait for their transcripts to perform.

The focus again shifted when Kibaki took charge. The focus was on the brain during Mzee Kenyatta’s time, it shifted to the person during Moi’s time. It has now shifted to money during Kibaki’s time. The ministry has been effectively surrounded by home guards because of the money. They do not care about the quality of education, the quality of the exams; they care about the money the ministry is allocated.

The fight to have a literate society was circumvented into creating a zombie state; a state of many half baked adults, people with imaginary power proffered upon them to read and write and to do all that appertains to their ‘degrees’. Not their mistake, their government’s.

Up to now, Kenya has lost the was on illiteracy, and in my view, we need a president who will tackle the open scandals at the ministry of Education, with a view to reverting us back onto the road to literacy, where quality education is dispensed to the best without focus on the person or money.

It bothers me when our children are taught on books that defy the truth. Your child will not know the truth if the author of the set book did not know the truth, yet his book has been listed and passed as recommended text; the power of money.

I have had time to question the substance contained in some books which are recommended texts. Then I get to realize that due to rampant tribalism at the ministry of education, coupled with the corrupt tendencies which have now become a way of life under the current presidency, semi literate minds must become authors; for that is their desired destiny, which the lords of graft must grant.

They crave for absolute economic emancipation, not quality production, and at the expense of our children.

Poverty which was an immediate case to address and solve upon attainment of Independence has become a crisis in Kenya. We now have a country of 30 million beggars vis-a-vis 1 million millionaires. And the divide is growing by the day, what with enterprises such as Anglo Leasing?

Where do you place this failure? If 44 years ago when poverty was addressable, we failed the test, can a product of the previous presidencies address and stamp it out, or reduce it significantly? Without reservations, my answer is NO. We need a new broom to confront poverty.

Poverty in Kenya has now become a mugumo tree which cannot be brought down by users of razor blades. We need the power of the hummer to crash it.

It again boils down to the presidency. If Mzee Kenyatta deliberately instituted a policy where man became fodder, Moi could have done better. But Moi, having been his principal assistant for 12 years, just like Kibaki was Moi’s principal assistant for 10 years, they did not have the capacity to confront poverty, because the designs were made at their dining table. Poverty was their creation.

The system needs a total overhaul, not with people masquerading that they want to be presidents, but by a real reformer who knows what he wants to do with the presidency. We must again not experiment with the presidency. 44 years is a long time to play roulette with the presidency.

We deserve better. And as Kenyans, we must go for the best that there is now. Someone who has the capacity to unify Kenyans despite their tribal backgrounds, not people who retreat to their tribal backyard when the going gets tough.

Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki were builders of a failed system. Their presidency failed to tackle illiteracy, and their presidency promoted poverty. This means they failed the Kenyan test. They and their cronies do not have the anti dot to undo their creation.

Poverty in Kenya is created to help bolster the powers that be. It is an attempt at creating a subservient society, people who will gladly accept the culture of hand outs to help drive a political win. Poverty is hence political; it is and has been fodder for the ruling class.

Kenyans must confront this head on and say enough is enough. We have enough wealth in Kenya that when shared equitably, can change the equation. That deliberate attempt is beyond the current president. That deliberate attempt involves casting your vote against the current president, and against other pretenders who want the presidency just for that sake; people with nothing to offer Kenya.

It involves voting for change, not those who are at peace with an illiterate and poor Kenya, a Kenya ravaged with disease and habitations of squalor.

Disease and shelter are twin issues that could have been dealt a fatal blow long time ago if there was any attempt. With our taxes and borrowed money, hospitals were built and equipped. But at the same time, habitations of squalor were encouraged. How did Mathare and Kibera rise? At whose watch and for what benefit?

If a deliberate housing policy could have been effected with the same passion policy paper number 10 of 1965 was implemented, Kenya could have been on the first lane, we would have been self sufficient with quality housing now. But when the lead sheep looses way, the flock follows.

When Kenyatta failed to address the issues of illiteracy, poverty, disease and shelter, there was no way Moi and Kibaki could have. These were his trusted lieutenants, one was his vice president, and the other was his finance minister. When Mzee failed the test, his able assistants who had thrived under his tutelage, could not in any way pass the test.

It then behooves on all Kenyans to break with the past inept governance, and truly re-direct Kenya on the path that will positively engage disease, poverty, illiteracy and shelter more meaningfully. This is now beyond razor blades; we need a nyundo to do the work.

The current issues of tribalism cannot be solved by Kibaki, and that is why he has moved it to untold levels. That is why he sees old men for any new appointments, which is why he only sees his kith and kin as capable of moving Kenya forward. He was an able student under the guidance of Mzee Kenyatta and Mzee Moi, the two leaders who planted the seeds of tribalism which he has watered.

Mzee Kenyatta reached a point in time when in 1975 he had 90% of all public appointments from his immediate rural background, a phenomenon that took Moi 20 years to perfect, but which Kibaki perfected instantly upon being sworn in. Kibaki discarded all pretence and went on over drive. His was the case of gluttony, where one thinks that the food will get finished. He hence scoops beyond what he can swallow. He does not care what other Kenyans feel or think.

For him, tribalism is life.

Kenyans must break this jinx. People who were schooled in the Kenyatta regime are people who lost direction. They lost direction and drove Kenya firmly into debt, big debt, which we have not seen value for. With the kind of money that we have been given by the donor community, or still, borrowed, issues of poverty, illiteracy, disease, and shelter could have been history.

But these are issues that have become tools and assets of trade in subjugation of the Kenyan people. As they drove us firmly into debt, big debt, they became billionaires; they economically emancipated themselves. They presided over Kenya, stole our wealth, and watched with glee as Kenya became a beggar state.

Someone must change this, and it is good we have a capable bridge into the Kenyan we deserve.

This has been so long a response, but it will not be complete without addressing national cohesion, something Moi calls tribalism. When Moi advices us to shun ODM, and that ODM is a tribal party, the word tribal assumes a new meaning.

What would he call Kalonzo’s party which retreats to Ukambani at the slightest show of political muscle by the real ODM? The man had 24 years at the helm, and he did not make things any better. He must hence now leave us alone to confront issues of tribalism and national cohesion which he found as assets in governance.

Kenyans must now take charge and re-create Kenya. We must reverse the gears of illiteracy, poverty, disease, and lack of adequate shelter, and engage gears that will drive us forward, away from illiteracy, disease, poverty and create enough hospitable shelter. That means we must vote out Kibaki, and dismantle all those networks of corruption and maintenance of status quo, and vote into office an enigma that will go to work.

Leaders who coalesce around their tribesmen, leaders who descend on their home grounds to gather enough courage to launch salvos at other Kenyans, and re-create their perceived presidential bids, leaders who know that they are only men enough amongst their kith and kin, leaders who chest thump and cry war cries only surrounded by their people, are the kind of leaders we must not associate with in our collective desire to move Kenya forward.

These are the kind of leaders Mzee Moi should be addressing in his current misplaced vitriol’s, otherwise talking about tribalism now, when you had 24 years to set the pace, is akin to the irritating beats of a stuck gramophone.

All this inept handling of the Kenyan problem can be traced to the infamous conspiracy of 1965; policy paper number 10.

I failed to understand how some sane government, ably presided over by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and assisted by Mwai Kibaki, David Mwiraria and John Njoroge Michuki, could come up with such a paper. Fish from Nyanza was transported all the way to Thika for processing. Banana from Kisii was also brought all the way to Thika for processing. Maize from Kitale was brought for storage in Thika. Macadamia from Mombasa was brought to Thika for processing, and cattle from Garissa were brought to Thika for slaughter.

It meant that all that you had worked for was left at Thika. Kenyans became the canon that powered the economic take off of Thika and her people. Coming to Thika meant that you spent your nights in their lodgings as you waited, ate their food and socialized with their people in their night spots.

It meant you spending 60% of your income on Thika, and going back to wherever you had come from a poor man, a wretched of the earth, while Thika blossomed.

Such was the ignominy of a failed presidency.

The good news is that we now have an opportunity to rectify this historical mess saddled down our throats by the preceeding presidencies. Our votes can decide whether we tackle the issues we were meant to tackle at Independence, 44 years ago, or we remain content with the gravy train that firmly consigns Kenya into a failed state.

Our collective resolve will show whether we want to dismantle tribalism, whether we want to trudge the path that leads to a new Kenya.

We can do it. So, let’s do it and vote as a block for Kenya, not for tribalism.

Odhiambo T Oketch
Komarock Nairobi.