Servant leadership vital to steer nation and fight corruption

For centuries, much ink was spilled in the quest to find characteristics of a true leader. Some people say a leader possesses extraordinary skills of rhetoric, in order to sway and convince people to follow him. Yet, a very early leader - the biblical Moses - could barely speak in public and needed his brother to make every announcement for him. Despite this, he still led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and into the promised land of Canaan.

Other thinkers believe a leader must be courageous to lead his people to greatness. It helps, on the one hand, to have success due to courageous behaviour. But on the other hand, it often leads to destruction and catastrophe, because the idealisation of courage can prevent the leader from objectively calculating risks of a certain action. Consider one of the most courageous Africans of the antiquity, Hannibal of Carthage. He waged war on Rome and led his elephants all the way through Europe into what is today Italy. Unfortunately, he was defeated, and consequently Rome subjugated Carthage for hundreds of years.

Thus, it seems that a good leader, first and foremost, must have a good connection to his people. This is most often expressed in humility, in the capability of a leader to communicate eye-to-eye with his people. The New Testament tells us: “and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 25:21). This important aspect of a leader is too often overlooked in today’s world. 

Politicians often behave as though they own the country. They expect perks and rely on a widespread system of graft to enrich themselves and their families.

Our parliamentarians come to mind.

Just recently, they passed a Bill granting the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) – a commission made up mainly by Members of Parliament themselves – the power to bypass the Salaries and Remunerations Commission (SRC).

While this might sound like a dry bureaucratic act of pushing duties and responsibilities from one office to another, these two commissions are completely different in nature. In fact, they share no more than the name “commission”.

The PSC was established by the Constitution to give the MPs tools to ensure smooth procedures and, in general, a functioning Parliament. The SRC is a constitutionally guaranteed independent commission whose members represent a wide array of civic society. Therefore, it makes sense that they are in charge of deciding the salary of elected officials. Anything else would be trusting the cat to keep the cream!

Luckily, President Uhuru Kenyatta repulsed their hideous scheme. On this, the President chose to stand with the common man at the risk of angering the lawmakers.

Of equal importance is the fact that he taught the MPs an important lesson in humility. By reminding them that they are servants of the people, and not masters who can do as they please, he sent a strong message to all of Kenya: the old days are over. The days of politicians getting rich on the backs of the citizens are gone. A new dawn has come.

This should not surprise ardent followers of national news. Since the multi-agency task force for fighting corruption was formed, no criminal has been safe from prosecution. Even embattled Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich felt the brunt of the law.

While the war against corruption is not yet won, we should take note of every single battle and throw our weight behind the anti-graft agencies, so they can continue to fight for us.

- The writer is an architect and comments on topical issues.