As I walked to the stage to get a matatu to town, my attention was trapped to the headlines that I saw on one of the leading newspapers in the country, being a Kenyan I acted the Kenyan way, make quick halt at the newspaper vendor and have a closer look, it read " I am ready to step down in 2017 race: Raila Odinga” for a moment I thought this was some kind of joke, "Raila odinga step down! Not wishing to get late to my daily business, I decided ok, fine I’ll just go to my phone and read the all story as I move on.
As I went through the news on my screen, I was intrigued with the part that Raila said the words, and I quote “Must it be me? No! I am prepared to support others if they have better prospects of beating Jubilee hands down” and I thought to myself, this was the highest level of political maturity that Kenya and even the African continent needs, must it be me? I personally loved that statement, for me and other Kenyans.
It was an assurance that there is still hope for political civilization in this nation that has seen hooligans being elected for leadership post by the electorates who are blinded with greed for short term satisfaction ignoring the long term severe consequences. With the obsession of a 50/= note we carelessly vote them in, marking the Genesis of our misfortunes only to realize later that we indeed booked our own ticket for this long journey accompanied by miseries and theft of public funds for the next five years, five years my goodness! Heavens needs to hear this! What name do we give to this level of ignorance?
That we never take note of a re-run of these events years in but rather smartly and swiftly forget “tushazoea uongo zao.” This Kenyan mentality needs to stop, we never learn despite endless series of political spoil to our economy, institutions and worst to our social life. Weird things that we observe in this country are as a result of bad politics, when Raila says it doesn't have to be him, people from Nyanza should have seen this and accept it by the virtue that he speaks as a respected Kenyan leader and not as a Luo leader, when president Uhuru leads the polls, as per the polling bodies, let us see him as a Kenyan leader and not as a descendant of Mumbi, leader of central Kenya.
When the DP stands to speak in a forum regardless of the venue, let him sale his ideas instead of his usual opening remarks “Yule Jamaa wa vitendawili" I mean how is that helping Kenyans? As much as politics is that dirty game, can the politicians for once play it clean, because there is that sense of humanity that detaches one from their career to the person he or she is. When things get dirty we don’t have to get dirty along with, the believe of mtu wetu with no call of leadership lacking ideas being embraced while men of great ideas that can move this country forward are shunned on the altar of tribalism is the kind of retrogressive thinking that holds this country in the claws of poverty, poor education system, sluggish economic progress and insecurity.
If mtu wetu can’t deliver let’s go for a better option why stick with him because he belongs to my tribe he’s “Baba or Uhuruto” This sycophancy will kill us. But I totally understand, I know why our leaders behave the way they do, I know why a bunch of them can lack manners before the public, throw cheers at each other and loosely utter words that can jeopardize unity of this nation, it’s because often such kind of leaders always do not have anything to offer, they just don't, they have nothing to offer to the citizens who gave them the power they now misuse. Trust me if they had, Kenya as we speak would no longer be categorized as a third world country, if they ever did, corruption would have been at its lowest form but because they don't, we are leading in corruption scandals as other nations are hiking high in innovations, economic progress, and infrastructural development as we sit back and brag, “the economic power house of east and central Africa.”
Honestly, that morning, I admired the nature of wisdom that the former prime minister displayed. If African leaders could see this in the same line, then there couldn't be any reason to doubt that the continent was heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, good things never last, this kind of leaders only exist in our history books. It’s encouraging we are seeing a new trend with Magufuli, but again be assured African leaders whenever they see something good they will always stand to critic it rather than adopt it, they believe that when you are in power, you are bound to die in it with it and by it, and that’s why 80% of our elections always end up with bloodshed. But am delighted today a new dawn has come, it doesn’t have to be me.
