From: otieno sungu

Last Friday, I traveled to my rural home in Rarieda among other things to check on my humble fish farming initiative besides visiting my aging mum. In spite of her age, she is a very hard working old lady, just like many Kenyans. She has just harvested several bags of maize, beans and millet, enough for consumption through to next year’s rainy season and surplus for sale to the local secondary school. This is besides her vegetable farm that keeps her going with money for supplies. I am proud of my mother, who, just like many Kenyans, works hard not only to survive but to contribute to our success as a nation. It is against this backdrop that when I met some young men in Kisumu later on Saturday, we engaged in some discussion in which I had to bring them down to some very hard truths about the state of our nation.

On Saturday, I took time to attend the funeral of Mr. Jashon Oluga, the former Managing Director of National Bank of Kenya in Seme. Among others was area MP Hon Anyang Nyongo. As expected, he implored the youth to take IDs so as to vote during the coming general elections.

Much later in the evening, I joined some bosom friends in Kisumu to catch up and compare notes on a raft of things. Inevitably, our discussions veered off from the general and catching up to politics; the current and aspiring leadership. The discussion got so animated that some young fellows sitting nearby joined the discussion.

I sat by and listened as many contributed with authority. I am usually very slow to jump into such fray of political support to the current crop of Presidential aspirants, especially the breed whose economic and social policies have been hibernating only to be reactivated at election year’s eve while they craft “tribal policies” to get them into leadership.

So much later, when the frenzy wore down a bit, and much of the leadership declarations whose resolutions I care less to remember died down, I asked if we could engage in some exercise to figure out the real issues rather than the personalities each had bandied around.

In spite of the audience being taken aback, they agreed to my suggestion. So I asked if we could all take an analysis of the current situation. I begun by asking about the state of our economy; employment levels, poverty eradication, fight against diseases, accessibility to affordable health care, food security, the cost of living, accessibility to affordable and quality education etc.

Many gave their sentiments about how things stand; I asked if we could then take a vote on the general standards of living. It was a unanimous decision that the standards of living for majority of Kenyans was far below satisfactory. So I asked,

………………. “and whose mistake is it that Kenya is in this sorry state?”

We then were left with the question why this state of affairs continued to persists. A few still tried to absolve their preferred candidates but realizing how futile and hollow they sounded after the reality check and the elevated debate, they gave up. The unanimous verdict was that the collective lethargic, selfish and vision-less leadership got us where we are otherwise things would be much better. It was agreed our collective predicament as a nation was as a result of those characteristics of our current and former leaders.

Having taken the energy and debate away from personalities to issues, I then asked if we could take an imaginary journey into the bin of leadership, the current aspirants especially those who have been in leadership. We thus took the journey of identifying, among the current filth of empty leadership one close to our aspirations, and while in there, each one came up with names of the person they thought was clean enough to epitomize the selfless leadership we all yearn for. This time round, the offers were less emotive but rather feeble attempts at looking for, from the dump, someone clean and visionary we could cling on.

The process of picking this leader was discursive, the more we discussed, the obvious it now begun emerging to many that the very leaders we fight over are part and parcel of the rot we are in. The very fact that all the frontrunners who have been in leadership have a scandal or two to their names sobered up even the diehard supporters of various candidates. Their collective unity in scandalizing this nation is what made this group realize that we are hinging our hopes on nothing other than the very rotten structures to build a new house.

As my closing remarks after that exercise, I bluntly made it clear to those folks, including very good friends, some from my high school days, the very ones who had begun frothing in the mouth over personalities when the discussions veered into politics and leadership; I told this group that the ordinary Kenyan is the enemy of this nation. It is the ordinary Kenyan who blinds himself to issues and defines politics from tribal prisms, it is the ordinary Kenyan who defends corrupt leadership in the name of “one of our own”, it is the ordinary Kenyan who compromises on integrity to create room for greedy, selfish, corrupt individuals to find their way into leadership, it is the common man who has lowered the bar for integrity to the extent money launderers, drug barons, land grabbers, sex pests, lords of scandals, tribal bigots have found favor in our national leadership.

When a nation allows scoundrels to play roulette, pilfer, plunder, scandalize and corrupt the heart of the nation; health care, education, agriculture, budgeting and social security, we can only expect social unrest as a result. The core areas that lead to a nation’s development are determined by how well it;

· Establishes for its population quality and relevant skills through education that spurs quality, professional services and innovation.
· Establishes quality, affordable, accessible and corruption free health care that ensures a healthy and vibrant workforce.
· Provides technical support to farmers for maximum returns which ensure national food security and individual wealth.
· Plans through diligent budget processes policies that spur job growth and capital availability.
· Establishes corruption proof social security systems that carters for disadvantaged groups and comfort in old age.

Once we achieve the above, we will have a nation and leaders worth talking of, but as it is, we are as good as the people I am currently reading about, Citizens of Nowhere.

In her book, veteran journalist Debi Goodwin follows up the lives of 11 refugees from Daadab Refugee Camp, 10 Somalis and 1 Ethiopian to Canada on education scholarships and permanent relocation and resettlement, a journey that takes you through their turbulent, violent and traumatic history after Said Barre’s toppling and the clan wars that brought them to Daadab. Life in Daadab Refugee Camp is a reality check of the tribalism our leaders have fermented and fomented to inform and drive our empty political passions for selfish ends. Today, these young men and women from Somalia do not wish to be reminded of their clans, it is a topic the journalist had to circumvent because for these young generation, the clans their fathers held so dear brought so much misery and lowly lives to their collective sense of a nation that they had rather not be reminded what clans they belong to as they begin journeys to new lives and lands to call home.

If we continue this path of tribalism and hate, if we do not become dispassionate and focus on the issues that should inform our discourse on leadership, if we continue to hurtle down the path of tribes, we will never wish to be reminded what tribes we belong to, for all we would be holding in some refugee camp,when we are done with fighting for our tribes like the Somali refugees fought for their clans, is that tribal identity, and yes, pitiful rations from non governmental organizations and hopes of a normal life somewhere far away from Kenya.

But right now, we can busy listening to politicians trying to make us hold so dear the tribal tags, use the same for bargains in leadership, whip emotions up into support and cheer groups and God forbid, pit us against each other like they did in 2007 in their quests.

Why worry, such a time and life as the one for the Daadab refugees will take care of itself!

Otieno Sungu.