Years back on Fridays, KBC radio announced harambees for schools and other development projects. Ministers were often the chief guests. Every week, the President and the vice-president presided over harambees, with millions of shillings being splashed in those meetings.
No one questioned where this money came from. In short, Kenyans were captives of the State. They were told to ‘tingisha kidole’ and they could do it without question. The second finger on the right hand was always ready to ‘tingisha’ whenever the President or any of the Kanu stalwarts came to your region.
When Kenyans voted for the new Constitution in 2010, albeit with a few amendable clauses; they wanted this old style of running affairs of the nation brought to an end. They wanted to be made to think and hope and not to be thought for.
They wanted to run their own affairs without anyone coming down to them with bags of money to hoodwink them. They wanted to have resources down in their locality and pull ideas together on how to develop their areas. This was why devolution was on the minds and leaps of many Kenyans.
The push for referendum by ‘Okoa Kenya’ on one hand, and the Council of Governors on the other, is in the interest of the people of Kenya and it is not in anyway meant to destabilise the Jubilee administration. It is intended to embed in the Constitution particular clauses that Jubilee wants to use to dangle their carrot wrongfully to the people of Kenya.
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It is indeed shaming to hear seasoned politicians twist the slogan ‘Pesa Mashinani’ to ‘pesa mashimoni’. Even political nondescripts have adopted the same and they keep yapping and gassing the same twisted version in public forums.
This is demeaning ‘mwananchi’. It simply tells what the Jubilee administration thinks of the people in the grass-roots; that they live in ‘mashimoni’ hence, they don’t deserve anything better. No wonder the deputy president is seen all the time presiding over harambees and dishing out millions of shillings in the name of development. Kenyans want ‘Pesa Mashinani’ and not ‘Presidency Mashinani’.
Politics of insults and blasphemy is taking shape, and all manner of tirades are aimed at the proponents of referendum.
Opinion polls are being sponsored to pour cold water on referendum push, but Kenyans’ resolve to have meaningful, lasting and mighty changes to the Constitution is unstoppable.
