From: Alex Tallam
Date: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 11:00 AM

The root cause of the problems Kenyans face today was as a result of our past leaders, especially the first government led by Kenyatta. This government started off badly by sowing the seeds of tribalism, Kenyatta’s first government was purely a Kikuyu affair, right from the security forces to the civil service. He simply could not appreciate the fact that Kenya was made up of 42 tribes, this he did not hide, he even made a statement to the effect that “ sisi tukikamua ngomb’e asubuhi, wengine watakamua jioni” this was arrogance of the highest order.

Kenyatta had a duty to resettle people who were earlier evicted by the white settlers to their original farms, this did not happened, instead, they allocated themselves huge tracks of land, that is why Kenyatta family today owns 700,000 acres, Moi family 500,000 (most of it acquired when he was president) and Kibaki 300,000 acres (courtesy of Ndungu Land report).

Many others went on to acquire wealth at the expense of the people who were supposed to benefit from the independence they fought for. If we look at the leaders we have today, they are there courtesy of the ill gotten wealth, and they will do anything to cling to power just to protect their wealth, that is what happened in 2007, otherwise, how do we explain a situation where a leader (he was sworn in under darkness) who has been rejected by the people clings to power even when people were losing their lives? And property destroyed?

Perhaps the most serious injustice that the Kenyatta regime committed against Kenyans were the curtailment of civil liberties, the people were not free to speak against atrocities the government was committing, that explains why many of the political assassinations took place during his time.

The first step in solving our problems today therefore is by appreciating that we have problems and then we look for solutions. So we must admit mistakes were made and there is a problem and by taking that step, the problem is as good as solved. Again we should not forget our past, because we must reflect on our past to be able to build the future. We must look back and use our past to correct where we failed and at the same time we must look back and use our past to make it even better where we succeeded. Those who advocate the idea of forgetting our past will not solve the problems we face today because the injustices visited on the people will always come back to haunt us just as we witnessed last year. We must appreciate the fact that there are wounds which must be healed, so we must seek to heal the wounds once and for all, because a wound will remain a wound anyway until it is healed up completely.

Otherwise leaving a wound closed will not heal by itself, it will eat the body underneath until it will be opened up (Kibaki did it last year through rigging) one time or another and it will be fatal.

My stand is that solutions MUST BE FOUND TODAY AND NOT TOMORROW. We should not postpone a problem while we have time and resources to solve it. Today is the time to be honest to each other, sit down and find solutions to these problems. It is better we open up the wounds by speaking out on the injustices done without fear and seek to heal them without necessarily going through what we have witnessed and that will actually deter it from occurring again in future. I know many will come out to accuse me of being a tribalist, but I also know many more will reason with me. For example, it is a fact that the kikuyu community are to be found all over Kenya courtesy of the Kenyatta government. I am well travelled in Kenya, and I will give a few examples I know where the Kikuyu community were settled by Kenyatta government, Hindi settlement scheme, Mpeketoni settlement scheme and Lake Kenyatta settlement scheme all in coast province. Many more settlements were set up in Rift valley I beg not to name these because I may be biased (I am from Rift valley), I will expect therefore members of the Kikuyu community who are participants in this forum to be honest and agree with me that this was not right given that other people were also in these areas, and that even if the constitution allows us to own property anywhere in the country, it should not be seen to favour one community only, it should be across the board (it is nearly impossible for members of other communities to own property in central province). Some may argue that these people bought land in the areas I have just named, that may be the position, but you must agree with me that the government created the right environment for the Kikuyu community to do so through loans and awareness much to the disadvantage of other communities. I for one will admit that Moi continued with tribalism but at the same time I want to add that it never benefited the Kalenjin community as a whole just as the case with Kenyatta and Kikuyu community.

Alex.
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Subject: Kenyatta the root cause of our current problems.