Kenyans want leaders they can trust not genius

Members of the public perch up on the metals that support of a community water tank in Kibera to follow the proceedings of a political rally on June 05, 2022. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

There is nothing new under the sun. This scripture in Ecclesiastes 1:9 contains a powerful lesson for leaders. Virtually everything leaders promise has already been promised before. Even more telling, many of these promises have been implemented somewhere.

With the global climate change crisis, the power of leadership doesn’t lie in ability to make lofty promises but rather in keeping those promises. When leaders fail to keep their word, trust is shattered.

As politicians make a litany of promises in the ongoing campaigns, I choose to remind us that the biggest promise that must be upheld is the Constitution. Captured in the Constitution’s first article is the sovereignty of the people. As such, servant leadership built on trust is a constitutional requirement.

Politicians must also recognise that Kenya already has a development blueprint that took millions of shillings and thousands of hours to develop. Virtually all promises being dished out in campaigns are covered in Vision 2030.

The Kenya Vision 2030 is a vehicle for accelerating transformation of our country into a rapidly industrialising middle-income nation by 2030. Kenya has been ranked as a lower middle-income country since 2014. However, we are yet to break into upper middle-income economies. According to the World Bank, these are the ones with a Gross National Income (GNI) of per capita between $4,046 (473,786) and $12,535 (1,467,848). Against this scenario, our presidential candidates must demonstrate how they will lead the country to upper middle-income status.

Kenya is Africa’s sixth largest economy. This means we are on the right trajectory. We have a lot going for us. Firstly, Kenya’s blue economy remains largely untapped. According to Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (Kemfri), we harvest less than 10 per cent of fish in our coastal exclusive economic zone.

You will rarely hear leaders offer practical solutions for harvesting more fish at the coast. It doesn’t take a genius to know that if we harvest more fish from our ocean, the coastal economy in particular and the country’s economy as a whole will benefit immensely. The leader who will tap fully into this immense blue economy potential will earn our trust.

Northern Kenya has livestock. According to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya’s livestock sector contributes about 12 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 42 per cent to agricultural GDP. This is unsurprising since Kenya has the second-largest livestock reserves in Africa. However, our country is a high net importer of meat.

Consequently, we ship livestock jobs to foreign countries every time we import meat. It doesn’t take a genius to know if we revamp the livestock sector so that we become a net exporter of meat, we shall revamp northern Kenya’s economy.

Further down in Western, Africa’s largest freshwater lake sizzles with economic opportunities. The Lake Victoria Transport infrastructure can generate up $60 billion worth of trade annually for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Currently, it is generating only $6 billion. It doesn’t take a genius to know that full development of Lake Victoria’s transport infrastructure will galvanise East Africa’s lakeside economies. Pragmatic leadership will deliver these billions and engender trust among the electorate.

Finally, experts and development agencies have documented trade opportunities in every corner of the country. Standard Chartered revealed in a research report earlier this year that Kenya’s exports will grow by over Sh1.1 trillion by 2030. We must therefore increase local manufacture.

That is something we have talked about for decades. Kenyans are not looking for geniuses or dramatic set of front-runners to elect, they simply need candidates they can trust. A demonstrative flawless development agenda encapsulated in trust does it. Think green, act green!

The writer is founder Green Africa Foundation. www.kaluagreen.com