With new laws, Kenyans under Joshua must bring down the walls of our political Jericho

By Barrack Muluka

　The kind of greatness that we boast of in Emanyulia is not a conferred greatness. You do not get there because your father was a governor, the president of an alliance of shrines or a knight. Indeed real greatness anywhere cannot be conferred, nor can it be inherited. It cannot be planted, but it rather chooses where to lodge itself and grow. It is the greatness of the great iroko tree, the king of all trees. This great African tree chooses where to grow. But this greatness is also like the kind of greatness that the people of Kenya should be looking for, as they dream of glorious days.

The tragedy is that Kenyans are caught up in a time warp with wrong images of great leaders.

They are devastated in the sweltering aftermath of captivity; hence they think that salvation rests in a handful of individuals from the oppressive past.

In the essay Spelling our Proper Name, published last year in the volume The Education of a British Protected Child, Chinua Achebe has said, "To answer oppression with proper resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self knowledge of the victim which means an awareness that oppression exists . . . secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor’s real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!"

The people posturing around as great leaders on the path to 2012 are part of the privilege and oppression of the past. That was how they ascended to influence and visibility in the first place.

They mystify themselves and make believe that only they can lead, in a population of 39 million people. And we buy and swallow this sublime mysticism and hogwash.

Now the Minister for State for National Planning and Vision 2030, Wycliffe Ambetsa Oparanya, a man who hails only a stone’s throw away from Emanyulia, knows that these things are true. The minister from the village of Emabole, has just told us that there are 39 million people called Kenyans. Of course Mr Oparanya has not told us how many of the 39 million qualify for the local great Order of the Village Buffalo (OVB).

But Kenyans have been behaving strangely. While they have given themselves new laws that should enable them break with a dark past, they have been behaving as if there are only three national buffaloes that can succeed Mzee Kibaki when he retires from the house on the hill.

We are hearing that out of 39 million people, only three, whose fathers were some sort of governors, knights and presidents of some alliances, have the capacity to take over from Mzee Kibaki. And so we read in the daily press of political inheritors who are agonising over whom they should make their running mates when the time comes for Mzee Kibaki and Mama Lucy to go to Othaya, to eat arrow roots and watch their grandchildren grow.

Kenyans are behaving like the chickens of Emanyulia and Emabole in the aftermath of the flowering of beans. Back in the village, we tie the chickens to one spot when beans begin to flower. Others we cover under dark coops. This way we protect the flowering plants from hungry chicken beaks. When the flowers have given way to pods, the fowls are loosed. They may now roam about the place freely.

　

But wonder of wonders, the freed birds remain in the same spot that they have previously been confined to, although they are now free. Even when you chase them away, they do not leave this spot. You need to kick them hard to make them realise they are free at last. Oparanya has told us that 85 per cent of Kenyans are aged 40 and below. But Kenyans, with the media at the forefront, are juggling the marbles of octogenarian harridans to see which will be best suited as governor for this county and who would be the ideal senator.

Good grief! Someone needs to kick us very hard in the political backside. The women of this nation have produced enough men and women who can lead and serve. Perhaps the media should be the first to get a kick in the backside. Prime time news and front page newspaper headlines are nauseating.

The impression is steadily emerging that Kenyans wanted a new Constitution as contest instrument for the 2012 elections and as a vehicle for the aggrandisement of a handful of egocentric individuals. If this be the case, then the effort was not worth it.

We have stayed on this mountain for far too long. We must move ahead. Kenya must recognise that many of the fellows posturing for high office are part of the past that the nation must make a clean break with. We are 39 million people. As the reigning self-proclaimed dreamer of dreams, I dream of new faces in the post 2012 era.

The people who held the rod that struck the waters of Red Sea of the old Constitution must remain in the political wilderness in order for this nation to get to Canaan. Even the biblical good old Moses never crossed the Jordan. We need our Joshua, Caleb and Gad to lead us to Canaan.

There are enough genuine leaders in Kenya; more gifted than the unyielding fly-by-night self-seekers of yesteryear. If only the daily press could shift attention from these noise makers and beam on real issues! Please, please, Comrades of the Press: allow Kenyans under Joshua to bring down the walls of our political Jericho!

The writer is a publishing editor and media consultant