Internalise past lessons and build a prosperous Kenya in New Year

It is amazing what hope a new year brings. Many of us see it as a new beginning and an opportunity to disengage from or build on the events of the previous year.

For those who have undergone pain or loss of a loved one, the new year provides some distance and healing begins to form.

The new year is also an opportunity to look back into the year ended and acknowledge lessons learnt.

At a national level, last year’s challenges made me internalise some terms that have rolled off my tongue many a times without quite sinking in. Those terms are nationalism (having desires common to the whole nation), patriotism (support, and defence of one’s country) and loyalty (faithfulness to commitments or obligations).

Those terms are part of our Constitution and I now realise they describe what I want to be to my country in 2015.

I realise my desire for a secure and stable nation is not and cannot be mine alone. That indeed all Kenyans must have realised that their personal efforts are only as good and as secure as the environment in which we exist. They must have realised that to protect ourselves, we all need a perimeter wall around us. That perimeter wall is not a physical one but a common desire to secure ourselves.

For hoteliers down in Mombasa, in the Mara and all over Kenya, they must have learnt that they do not exist in a vacuum; the state of the nation has a greater effect on them than anything else. That to determine whether to renovate their hotels or extend them, the one place they must look into is the country’s stability and ability to provide a secure environment for their clients.

It holds true for the person employed by those hotels who must have figured out in the last year that he too does not exist in a vacuum. That his ability to continue working is more dependent on the state of the nation and less on his employer eventually.

It is also true for the trader who stocks up merchandise and has no one to sell to because people have no money to buy. He then becomes aware that it is not enough to set up a business nor is it enough to have the best location.

The same is true for every sphere of our lives. We are only as stable and secure as Kenya is.

Then there is patriotism that requires us to support and defend our nation. For me it became evident last year that the responsibility to provide security cannot belong to the government alone; that in fact the primary responsibility is ours except that we have delegated it to government; in delegated responsibility the buck remains with the principal.

 

Of loyalty I now know that I have obligations that I must be committed to in order to make Kenya a stable and secure nation. I must pay my taxes and I must also ensure they are used for the purpose for which they are intended. I will also hold the ones to whom we have delegated responsibility to account by demanding that they exercise that power responsibly. Loyalty for me is remaining faithful to the democratic institutions and the persons elected to those institutions, but also ensuring that they are faithful to the oath of office.

In the end, I am of view that development of a country is not only about the roads, economy and beautiful buildings; that it is more about a people who have common desires for their country and recognise their responsibility to defend and remain faithful to their nation.