‘Governor’ Waititu gatecrashes Nairobi County on a tiger’s tail

By Donald B Kipkorir

“When Jesus went ashore, He saw a great crowd and He had compassion on them, because they were like a sheep without a shepherd.”

Mark 6:34

On Sunday, January 20, my friend, Julie Gichuru destroyed the hopes of my friends who were rooting for Evans Kidero as their Governor. My friends adopted Kidero after Jimnah Mbaru whom they wanted lost the TNA ticket to Ferdinand Waititu.

Am not a supporter of either Evans Kidero, Ferdinand Waititu or Jimnah Mbaru. My candidates for Governor who were in ODM got derailed. In the debate, Waititu came on top, and barring an earthquake; he may as well be our next Governor. And therein lie my fears, and those of my friends. On behalf of my close-knit of friends, I want to offer free advice to Waititu.

Waititu’s entire campaign strategy seemed to be pegged on portraying himself as a member of lumpeD proletariat, the working class, and not a bourgeoisie, the owners of means of production. I have never met Waititu and I don’t know what economic class he belongs to.

In France of old, Anthoine Girard aka Tabarin, used to play a clown in the streets of Paris, then when the crowds were still mesmerized, he sold them fake drugs. Modern charlatanry is the ability to sell any ideas, goods or services using such trickery perfected by Tabarin.

We are all proud of our city and we call it the City in the sun. But international rankings tell us otherwise. In its latest report, Economic Intelligence Unit, a leading forecasting and advisory services unit of The Economist, puts our beloved city at bottom ten of world’s liveable cities. We are lumped together with Tehran, Harare and Lagos as the worst cities to live in. We may disagree with EIU rankings, but the best thing is to understand why the dismal ranking.

EIU ranks liveable cities, basing it on multiple indices, which are collapsed into five different categories: political and social stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Looking on these five broad categories, Waititu has to be open to us, and tell us how he intends to work on them.

How will we eradicate insecurity in our city? When will we end burglaries and bank robberies? When will we have world-class public hospitals? When will we make Uhuru Park, Arboretum and City Park beautiful arboretums like those of Cape Town and Barcelona?

How will we convert our public primary and secondary schools into successful academies? What support will we give to University of Nairobi to be a top tier university like the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cape Town, if not Oxford? When are we going to actually tarmac afresh all roads within Nairobi, without patching them? When and how will we eradicate all slums within Nairobi?

Nairobi measures 696sqkm, exactly the same size like Singapore, and with same population. If Nairobi be 60 per cent of Kenya’s GDP, then our City’s GDP is US$19Billion. The GDP of Singapore is US$256Billion. Singapore is nearly 14 times richer than us.

Why I think Kidero lost that debate, it is because he wasn’t humble enough to articulate how we can learn from Singapore and grow our wealth. Singapore has no natural resources, not even land. They import sand from Thailand to extend their land by few meters to build their renowned airports and ports. Nairobi has sufficient land and we can always grab the neighouring counties of Kajiado, Machakos and Kiambu if we run out of land.

Waititu got TNA ticket because he had the support of the majority of the poor of Nairobi. The uppity of Nairobi is a squeezed minority. Various international reports say that over 60 per cent of Nairobians live in slums. The remaining 40 per cent are by and large those struggling to survive. The truly rich are less than 1 per cent. To join the truly rich class of the world, called the top 1 per cent, your annual income must exceed US$34,000 and assets worth over US$500,000. For truth, majority of Nairobi is actually poor.

In identifying himself with the purported poor of Nairobi, Waititu is riding on the tail of a tiger. No one wants to be poor. For those believing in creation like me, we ate the fruit in the middle of the Garden of Eden because we wanted to be like God with all power and majesty; for those subscribing to evolution, man came down the tree living as an ape, because he wanted to use his hands to make tools and eat cooked food! Just telling the poor you are part of them is not enough. The poor want security and food, then power and water, then next good roads and schools. The hierarchy of needs will change as the wealth increases.

The only way to have a Nairobi that belongs to all is by having policies that will transform our city into a modern metropolis. The moment we engage in tokenism of merely providing bread and water for today, and failing to plan for tomorrow, then we will be sowing the seeds for our own destruction. Waititu has to take up the challenge of leadership by selling to the people of Nairobi genuine and not fake products. Unless he wants us to take the bottom spots from Harare and Lagos.

All charlatanry comes to a screeching end. The crowd that is excited by the antics of the clown will come to realize they were sold fake drugs and will put the clown to the burning stake. A tiger is the biggest and most powerful of the cat family. When you ride on the tail of a running one, it will take you far, but you pray it doesn’t stop to realise you are riding, for it will eat you up. Nairobi is crying for a leader, a true and humble leader, and not a Tabarin.

The writer is an Advocate of the High Court.