The President Kenyans Deserve

(By Peter Okelo, Dedicated to Wole Soyinka (c) copyright)

It is a humbling and an ultimate honour to be elected president of your country. It is equally a honourable and grave gesture for an influential and equally eligible group of individuals to say-with the deepest conviction of the heart-that they support a single individual for the post of presidency-and in so doing hope to continue seeing and recognizing the nation in one individual, who in turn is not only a symbolic entity, but a national investment, a centre of potentially whole-nation-nurturing energy and inspiration.

Such collective support is not only a recognition of the true nature of the presidency, but a truly trusting and daring investment by the ones relinquishing potential power in favour of a national symbolic ritual rebirth, continuity through material, social and economic development. The objective of this kind of decision should surely be the strengthening of a national vision that in all intentions and hope should lead to the strengthening of national consciousness with great ramifications.

History demonstrates that it is the consolidation of this national consciousness that is the true asset of a nation, especially a nation like Kenya that is, from an optimistic perspective, struggling away from the false consciousness marked by the pitfalls of ethnic centred awareness. One is reminded here of Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and the rather prophetic chapter entitled "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness". Perhaps every serious politician should make this a bedside reading, just incase time is available during one's busy political life.

It is for this single reason of the willingness to uphold the nation and national unity that there will always be a reserved special respect for the 'founding fathers'-Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta (to name but a few, very few indeed)-who through concessionary dialogue placed the nation before their individual aspirations with varied degrees of selflessness. Likewise, there will always be a common contempt for those who had to be tumbled over the edge clinging to power; do we really have to go through the list?

It is not an overstatement to say that we in the present Africa owe much of our freedom to not only the collective effort of freedom fighting African brothers and sisters but to the relentless, unwaving passion, passionate dedication shall we add, and national vision of the same pioneers.

This article is not a campaign for any candidate, but a most sincere contribution to a national debate about my country. It is long since campaigns of fervor and favour found place in my mind. Emotional distancing has a way of casting an illuminating light on one's perception, consciousness and matters of social, political and economic nature. There is much at stake when you are dealing with the destiny of a nation, and neither fervour nor favour is what I would like to use to analyse the situation at hand. My only hope is that those who we may directly or indirectly entrust with this crucial task of selecting, voting for, or nominating candidates who may ultimately become leaders, presidential candidates, make the best choice in the interest of the nation, not in the interest of a narrow concern.

For the purpose of this article, we shall concentrate on the presidency.

There are two kinds of presidents; the president we want and the president we deserve. As we move ever closer to the elections, Kenyans have, once again, the enormous task and burden of choosing the president they deserve. The same goes for parliamentary and local government leaders.

The situation in Kenya is not unlike that in many non-African and African countries; the choice of a leadership directly affects the urgency and the quality with which the matters facing the nation are tackled and addressed. I would not like to paint a stereotypical negative picture here. I am very conscious of the picture that is characteristically painted of African countries-they are always the repositories of all that is negative and undesirable.

No, I do not believe in such sweeping paint-brush analysis that only falls all too well within the framework of a pattern of representation I have intimately experienced, spent half my life writing about, and know all very well. Without conversely painting a rosy picture either, may I say that Kenyans like many of their millions of sisters and brothers across the African continent, have come from far, have come a long way, and have so far done much to improve life and much still awaits to be done. What has been done collectively has enabled those of us who were born 'yesterday', after the period of 'classic' colonialism and internationalized racism, to thrive. Some us have fallen by the roadside though-there are those who would say allowed to fall-in 'peace', while some have enjoyed freedom, much abundant freedom, choice, real and potential growth.

I do recognize, in measured objectivity, that even though Kenya achieved independence some 44 years ago, and that though much has been done; the general feeling seems to be that much could still be accomplished, indeed could have been achieved, if only the bud of potentiality could be aided to go a little further than to be trapped in apparent circular ritual motions of possibilities.

Every time I come back home to Kenya I find resilient, creative people who are able to live their lives with little help from the outside, much of which does not really reach them even at a time when the country significantly relied on international aid.

I find people who are able to live without the handouts or welfare assistance that their counterparts in the so-called developed countries take for granted. On top of this though, Kenyans generate wealth, massive wealth, with little help from outside. They prop up the government with their daily offerings and efforts of nation building in various forms including the payment of tax. The true wealth of the nation resides in this resilience and self-reliance. Yet this may, ironically, be downfall of the nation-as it makes huge savings upon the back of a resilient population short-changed paradoxically because of the population's spirit of self-reliance and resilience.

There is a strong and compelling, irresistible feeling, that Kenyans, given more concerted effort by the leadership and collective participation, would truly do much more than just survive the immediate situation. Kenyans, like many across the continent, struggle against some quite artificial hurdles and face mammoth tasks and issues that truly need to be addressed, sometimes most urgently. We know the issues, the yawns of need-water, food, education, employment, inequity and inequitable distribution of wealth, power, and opportunity. Shall we really go on counting?

It is true that Kenyans are caught up in a presidential system. So much power is centered on the president. In a presidential system, solution to critical problems facing a nation can be traced directly to the president's office. Much hinges on the presidency as it were. The president is then a critical power point in the leverage for change and national improvement.

Solutions to critical problems facing the nation can be authorized, initiated, influenced, sanctioned or altogether discouraged by the president's office.

This centralization of power partly explains the individual and collective strong desire to fill and occupy the office. The aspiration is all but very natural, very human indeed. The desire and freedom to opt for the highest office in politics is a sure welcome sign of democracy in Kenya unlike some years gone past when merely contemplating such possibility would have easily seen you through to the detention holes of Shimo La Tewa, or Kamiti Maximum Prison for lack of a better alternative more permanent in effect.

Remember the days you had to look over your shoulder to whisper a breath of dissent? Have we forgotten the days Koigi wa Wamwere grew long dreadlocks of symbolic defiance in hope and resistance-a resistance collective and national in scope-anticipating and refusing to give up a stubborn vision of emancipation from artificial claws of a system that was more bent on tearing away dissenting voices? Have we forgotten the trampling boots and batons, the detentions without appearance or trial?

It is these enduring images-if they have not already slipped into the oblivion of collective-memory comfort lulled by the passage of time-that should remind the national psyche that Kenyans will need more than an individual instinct, more than ethnic collective sentiment, to bring further change to the lot of the nation; I mean the whole Kenyan nation.

Kenyans will need an almost artistic engineering of individual, collective, and ethnic aspirations focused on this crucial office, with the ultimate objective of surpassing the attractions, and traps, of this luring office and focusing energies on Kenya as a nation, for further dramatic outcome that will continue to serve all Kenyans.

Such selfless socio-political engineering, if I do recall accurately from memory that sometimes fail us all too often, was witnessed during that artistic collective ballot-coup of the 2002 elections that saw the ascendancy of NARC and the graceless almost unbelievable departure of the former president Mr. Danielle Arap Moi. How the nation held its breath... If there is a god of political national emancipation, that day s/he walked unambiguously bare feet upon the Kenyan soil, bearing a brilliant flame of a rekindled national optimism about a shared destiny.

But hijacking of dreams is possible even on the ground, not just mid-air, so seems to be the general feeling demonstrated by the latter results of the recent national referendum.

The point I am trying to labour with here like a hunter who has lost his tongue is that Kenyans will have to choose the president they deserve, not merely the president they want. No, this is not semantics; the president is an inspiration, a national steam engine, a galvanizing factor.

The presidency is a national investment. Kenyans will not be investing in an individual; they will be making an effort to invest in an institution. The crucial task for Kenyans is to transform the presidency from an office for an individual personality into an office symbolic of national investment-the investment of national hope, national spirit of struggle with the oddities of life, the investment of national energy, of national dreams, dreams of families. If we should use the image of money for those inclined toward monetary imagery-think of the status of the presidency as a bank account and the cheque you deposit therein, your vote, not as a flimsy piece of paper but our national collective life asset.

Like the ritual protagonist in Wole Soyinka's Art, Dialogue, and Outrage, Kenyans will have to transform the presidency (and choosing of the presiding member of the Kenyan public-for the president is first and foremost a member of the Kenyan public) into a deeply and seriously significant ritual figure, a practical effective symbol of national common good, common endevour, a common investment of collective destiny, not of a handful chosen few.

No, this is neither rhetoric nor some petty play with words; Kenyans stand yet again, in this ritual moment of political renewal, at a crucial point of enormous collective constructive possibilities. Kenyans have the choice and freedom to indulge in splendid vanity clouded by ethnicity or to open up these possibilities by transforming this office into a demystified institution of collective good, not a chair for occupation by a personality.

With all due respect to those who may have a differing opinion, I would say that there is a way in which Hon. Mwai Kibaki has managed to transform the office into a less mystified human institution rather different from the previous image of his predecessor-an image of an apotheosized figure bewildering the public. Nevertheless, Mr. Kibaki has not succeeded in exercising an entirely effective intervening presence when such intervention has been an overwhelming collective desire. That such desire had to be finally expressed through a national referendum is not only a vindication of this observation but a historic statement regarding the need for presidential intervention and initiative in response to crucial national matters, like constitutional review to cite a case in point, rather than a by-standing, removed silent academic objectivity that may be construed by the public as bordering on indifference to collective national expectation.

Thus the responsive birth of ODM. One is reminded by that brilliant author Wole Soyinka (I know him all too well having spent half my life studying his words) that a man (read woman, child, youth, and nation) dies in every instance of objective indifferent silence over crucial potentially life-threatening situation...

The seriousness of our conditional collective fate dependent on presidential choice is well known to us, or have we forgotten all too soon? If we do not make the right choices, not only with choosing the president but parliamentarians too, we risk the well known-collective incarceration in detention cells of poverty ghettos; barbed wires of artificial layers of humanity (layers used to provide restricted development of a wealthy few); hopeless repetition of hope in seemingly everlasting motions of possibilities like Wole Soyinka's Yoruba metaphysical Abiku as life wastes away; thirst and waterlessness while Kenyan money build skyscrapers and splendid apartments overseas; hunger and continuous international begging when we can and actually do feed ourselves without help. We still risk artificial poverty that is held up like a bait to attract foreign aid rather than a shameful stigma that should be minimized. Should we go on counting the risks?

Think about it; have we really ever sat down as a country to debate how many water boreholes could be built in North Eastern region if only we used some of the money that gets stashed away overseas? Have we ever paused as a nation to think that the not so privileged, in the words of Tracy Chapman (blessed be her philosophical musical talent), 'May not just want handouts, but a way to make an honest living'? As I do tell my language students repeatedly; privileged is a verb in every social situation where some people are actively enabled while others are deliberately disabled.

So what kind of president do Kenyans deserve I here you ask. The moment is urgent, promising, exciting, and pregnant with positive possibilities.

Kenyans need and deserve a president passionate about Kenya. A Kenyan president passionate about development, a president sworn to the reduction of poverty (poverty eradication is a rhetorical academic illusion, we have been there), provision of water, a president who prioritises the equality of Kenyans and has equity policy, not just equality for a few, a president tirelessly pursuing policies that will ensure the decentralisation of resources, power and opportunities so that a child from the El Molo tribe can have and drink water like a child from the Luo tribe regardless of any perceptions of comparative ethnic significance and priority supremacy. A president who does not fear saying that people are more likely to die, not so much from disease as such, but from negligence and opportunistic circumstances that rein in when you simultaneously have a weak biological and moral immunity. A president that wakes up early in the morning to talk to people about their collective good and prosperity. A president ready to eat Skuma Wiki and Ugali if that is the price of honesty and truth-lest people lose their dignity.

Currently tribe seems to feature quite prominently, once again, in the debates about the forthcoming ODM presidential race and national presidential elections. I submit here, and stand to be corrected in my claim, that tribe is good. Tribe is one of the most natural identity definitions that one (anyone), a child, can receive from her or his community.

I do want to note here that I am focusing on tribe, not its ideological expression-tribalism, which mistakenly sounds like a philosophy, if only for the presence of the -ism suffix that in turn reminds one of Wole Soyinka's ism to ism for ism is ism in isms and isms inspired by absolute schooled schizophrenic schism. Have you read Wole Soyinka's Kongi's Harvest? Remember the Moi days when if you put the play on stage you also attracted stealthy-clad dreaded CID members into the unsuspecting drama theatre audience-especially at Nairobi University? A mere book, a mere play... never mind.

Tribe is good because tribe is a tool in the hands of a sincere administration with a national collective vision. Tribe and tribal affinity saves a governmental administration the grassroots engineering efforts necessary for national population mobilization. But again, tribal identity and affinity is a potential double refraction-it can be deflected and aimed away from national objectives, or it can be refracted effectively to become part of the multiple-tribe-tributary streams that irrigate a collective national farm from which all equally pick the fruits of independence, Matunda ya Uhuru as those us in Kenya and the currently molding East Africa block would put it in Kiswahili.

Nevertheless, tribe-centered consciousness in its virulent form finds expression through retrogressive cracks that run across a national body initially held together by the preliminary national social conscience and struggles for independence. An example of a restricted vision inspired by ideological manipulation of tribe-ethnicity, a crack in the national psyche, is the vision of Majimbo and its brainchild ideology of Majimboism-another pseudo philosophy-which constitute a pitfall in the molding of a National consciousness. This is another ism that Kenyans should dump with the utmost possible contempt and skepticism. Many Kenyans irrespective of tribe have collapsed and fallen through similar narrow-focused crook-clan-cracks... Why does national memory fail us so soon? Is it because history has taken a back seat? Is it because we are so young we do not remember?

Kenyans should dump Majimboism and similar isms into the pit latrine of historical retrograde backslide. And why should we do so? Because provincial, district and constituent demarcations are more than sufficient administrative instruments, tools, for genuine non-partisan national government.

Secondly, we should dump such sentiments masquerading as philosophy because in essence, a Jimbo (the word from which the plural Majimbo originates), the geographic region, is an imaginary and yet potential physical demarcation of a 'hopeless' vision (a dream that has given up hope) inspired by perceived and real unfulfilled desires and frustrated collective ambitions usually of a socio-economic kind.

The next president of Kenya, my fellow Kenyans, has the task of deflecting such vision away from an ethnic-service target and instead using the opportunity of collective fervour of tribes to continue the molding of a truly national awareness.

In reality unequal distribution of the Matunda ya Uhuru constitute a defacto and rather distorted Majimbo since Jimbo as we have seen, is not really a physical demarcation, it is in essence a retrogressive mark of a restricted collective vision. The collective vision finds a physical definition in the Jimbo boundaries. It then follows that contrary to traditional perception, Jimbos can exist without their realization in actual geographical delineation; and this is the worst form of Jimbo since it is fluid and dispersed, yet real. Such Jimbo can be explained away, denied, even as it serves a few, a handful. It can be effectively masked, clothed in national costumes and songs. But when the sun goes down, the cows go to the surreptitious architects of the clandestine Majimbos-not to the collective tribe as such. The tribe is (normally) used as an instrumental stepping-stone in the game of camouflage. The collective body of the tribe is not usually the beneficiary of the clandestine Jimbo. I here submit, as an illustration, that the Nyayo era and system clothed in national costumes, celebrated with songs of presumed national vision sung so long by Kenyans, served a narrow section of society, not a whole tribe.

Disguised Jimbo 'system' is comparable to a pattern of driving where the driver signals left but turns right. The next president has the enormous task of molding a parliamentary democratic vehicle of national collective vision. A vehicle whose driver-being the president assisted by the VP, the Prime Minister if ever one is constitutionally permitted, and parliamentarians along with local leaders-will signal right and turn right, indicate left and turn left.

In closing, as I once wrote in the Daily Nation; the first president of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta and the 'founding fathers' (not to forget mothers-wherever there is a father there must be a mother...) struggled and led this country out of the hell-hole of institutionalized international stark naked colonial racism; Mr Daniel Arap Moi tried his bit with the 'Nyayo philosophy'; Hon. Mwai Kibaki is still free to run for office if he so wishes like any other free Kenyan and is doing his best building on the inheritance from those who went ahead with some remarkable mixed results-in this respect the next president and her/his team would do the nation a great service by building on the current trend of revenue collection and the country's dependence on its own resources rather than donor benevolence which normally come with baits, fishing rods, and strings attached.

Finally, the next president has a mammoth task ahead-to demystify the presidency and turn it into an excessive-power-devolved institution, an institution that glorifies the life and effort and labour of Kenyans, not the other way round.

Postscript:
I did not intend to publish this article, even though I wrote it many months ago. I had hoped that I would not have to publish it anywhere at all, that it would end up being an exercise in academic imagination. However, there comes a moment when one has to make a contribution to one's country, however little such contribution may be. This is my contribution, this is my most sincere vote, and I hope that somewhere in the maze of my inaccuracies and misguided ideas, fellow Kenyans of whatever origin will find some tribeless accuracy and ideas that they can identify with, pick and use, as we prepare for elections.

As to who to secretly choose or nominate or finally elect as the next president of Kenya; I would be misguided to tell you that. Kenyans are very resourceful people, they will decide-do I have to recount the daylight results of the referendum? It is not a good idea to underestimate the collective will of a people, so I would best let the Orange... well the ball, rest where it is-with Kenyans. The brilliance of the Orange is in your vote, so to speak.

The writing is on the inside walls of the secret ballot box-if we enable the inscription of collective vision and national social conscience without deliberate distortions (remember Mlolongo?). Let us give democracy yet another growing chance, we have come from far and we still have miles to go. The test of our collective national dream is the undistorted image we see in a 44-year-long tunnel ahead of us... What do we see?

(Please pass this open letter to all Kenyans you know. Write to the author: tekta01 at hotmail dot com)

The writer, Peter Okelo, teaches Language and Communication.