From: odhiambo okecth
Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 6:51 AM

President Barrack Obama has just been nominated the winner of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. He joins our own Nelson Mandela, Wangari Mathaai, Desmond Tutu and all those people of repute to have achieved this lifetime feat.

In congratulating President Obama, I want to look at Kenya and the sort of leadership that we have been voting in after every 5 years all through in the last 46 years. President Obama came from a background that does not boast of any political history, yet, in very few years, he was able to climb the political ladder from being what Alfred Mutua called a Junior Senator to being the President of the United States of America.

This is a feat we can learn from as Kenyans.

Can we be able to move with someone else to the promised land? Must it only be these people who have been there to lead us all the time? Are we capable of rising to the occasion and uniting in solving our own problems as Kenyans.

President Obama has been in the front line urging good governance for Kenya, but as Kenyans, what are we doing about it? We are busy strategizing Kalonzo style about 2012. Instead of focusing on the reform agenda, we are busy building alliances against Kenyans. We look at ourselves as Kikuyus, Kambas, Luos, Luhyas, Kalenjins instead of focusing on our Kenyanness.

Then we think of how we can unite to antagonize the rest of Kenyans. Can someone like Kalonzo leave that old Kanu mentality of zoning Kenya against others? Can he and his like think of all Kenya at the same time? That is our paradox. Smallness.

When President Obama is winning the Nobel for efforts he has put in place in entrenching peace across the world, what can our leaders be feted for? Corruption? Nepotisms? Tribalism? Ineptness? Rudderlessness?

And all this just because of us. It is us who vote these people into power every five years, it is us who sing their songs of praise, it is us who kill for them, it is us who will argue and defend their wrongs, it is us…..

In congratulating President Obama, I want to draw comparisons of what we can achieve for Kenya as Kenyans; we can unite and vote out impunity, corruption, ineptitude, nepotism, tribalism and rudderless leadership by voting all the elements who patronize the same vices.

We need to register as voters and overhaul the entire political spectrum right from the Council level to the Presidency. We have time on our side and I believe we can do it. They will not help us achieve this as leaders, they will only come in to fight for spoils, not reforms.

After all, Kenya is leading in IT connectivity and exposure.

Congratulations to President Barrack Obama, at least we have people who have seen leadership in you; Forget Gore Vidal.

Odhiambo T Oketch
Komarock Nairobi
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Subject: President Obama makes me proud