Degrees no panacea for bad leadership

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has proposed that all Kenyans aspiring for the positions of Members of County Assembly, National Assembly and the Senate must possess a university degree. IEBC does not give the rationale for this proposal. No empirical evidence is cited to show the correlation between higher education and effective leadership.

The drafters of the Kenya Constitution 2010 deliberated, consulted and widely sought views on this subject. They finally agreed that representative democracy is best exercised by the voters.

One only needs a post-secondary education to contest for any of the representative seats. The presidency and governorship positions require that one possess a university degree because they are deemed as management positions.

IEBC is wrong on this proposal for several reasons. First, most MPs who have left a mark on Kenyan politics are those who never went to university. The late Martin Shikuku was for a long time referred to as the master of parliamentary Standing Orders. No other MP in Kenya has attained this level of recognition as far as Standing Orders are concerned. Yet Mr Shikuku was only a certificate holder.

Tom Mboya was not a university graduate. He held a certificate in public health. Yet he left behind a legacy as an accomplished debater and author of the Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on Africa Socialism which has driven this country for a very long time. William Ole Ntimama was a master of parliamentary debates and was one of the excellent English speakers in Parliament yet he didn’t have a degree.

We may also pose the question: Did Charity Ngilu, the holder of a certificate in secretarial studies and who served as the Minister of Health under the Narc government perform better than when the same ministry was under Anyang’ Ny’ong’o, a man with multiple degrees?

In the United States, a country that has been independent for close to three centuries with a robust economy and huge educational opportunities for its citizens, some states still have elected governors who have no college degrees. Indeed, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is considering mounting a campaign for the republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Mr Walker attended Marquette University but dropped out without earning a degree. Representative Rand Paul, another Republican candidate for the White House, has no college degree. There are many current members of Congress and at least six US senators serving without university degrees.

The most revered and idolised President, Abraham Lincoln, didn’t have a college degree or a high school certificate. His successor, James Buchanan, is considered the worst performing President to ever sit in the White House despite having a college degree.

The US doesn’t have a law that determines the level of education for those who aspire to lead it at every electoral level. That mandate is left to the voters. That is how our electoral system should also run. Confining the choice of voters to candidates with university degrees is not only discriminatory, it is a threat to universal democracy.

What happens to a Kenyan who scored an A- in high school, got admitted to a public university, but failed to enrol for lack of school fees, went out to do casual work, paid his way to a tertiary college obtaining a higher diploma then engaged in community projects and programmes to a point where he or she is held in high esteem by the people who then urge him to run for an elective office?

Should such a person be locked out by elitist laws and requirements as proposed by the IEBC? What about women who have been marginalised for years? Very few women have achieved university degrees. How can we lock out half of the country’s population from leadership opportunities? Remember Linah Jebii Kilimo served as MP for Marakwet East for 10 years without a degree and brought peace between the Marakwet and Pokot, a feat her predecessors with degrees had failed to achieve.

There are those who have struggled through distance learning programmes, obtained degrees in their disciplines but later they learn that the Commission on University Education (CUE) doesn’t recognise their degrees for one reason or the other. Must such innocent and hard-working Kenyans be discriminated against when they seek leadership positions?

The voters are the supreme guardians of representative democracy. They should be left to decide who they want to represent them as MCA, MP or Senator. In Trans Nzoia, voters chose Janet Nangabo as their woman representative but she didn’t have a degree like the rest of her competitors. Her leadership performance has not disappointed!

The IEBC cannot rewrite our constitution. The constitution spells out that for one to run for a representative seat he or she must have a post-secondary education, which means a certificate onwards.

Please, let the people decide who they want as their leaders.