Wajir governor cannot evaluate himself

By Mohamed .Adow  Abikar

In Shakespeare’s book Julius Ceasar, the noble cassias in an attempt to recruit Brutus in a conspiracy to murder Ceasar asked Brutus whether he could see himself to which Brutus responded “No, not without a reflector”. To this angle we wish to remind Wajir County Leadership that they cannot see themselves and the public is their reflector. And so far, the feed back of the public reflection is that of an image distorted, blurred and ugly.  The idea of a successful Wajir County is a distorted thinking and obfuscate of the reality, befitting a Hollywood blockbuster fiction movie.

 The recent adverts by the county leadership included photographs of a few projects being flagged off and a shameless list of distorted information meant to portray “a well-managed county”. This is total misrepresentation of the facts and wrong self-evaluation report. To the contrary, corruption is rife, the leadership is limping and there is nothing on the ground to support their claims. The only visible big time development is that of self-development and grandiose. 

It’s a matter of public knowledge that the majority of Wajir residents already view the county helm as suffering from aggressive egocentrism and toxic leadership. Toxic by virtue of  their dysfunctional development characteristics and destructive policy references that has inflicted reasonably serious and enduring harm.In recent months, the nation has witnessed Governors and assemblies loosing mysteriously their way. They probably thought they won’t get caught or believed their elevated status put them above the law. A number of them have already risked great careers and blemished reputations for ephemeral gains.

The news advert in Wajir case was a paid disinformation, falsehood statement to convince Kenyans of the untruth. It is propaganda designed to engage emotional support and manipulate the readers at a rational level by discrediting the existing information on corruption and mismanagement in the county in a view to support false conclusion. They must be deluded in thinking that the public is and will be convinced their media lies are true. The Wajir leadership has accepted the most fragrant violation of reality because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them and they had not sufficiently invested in public leadership.

Their leadership has visibly fallen to the seduction of wealth, more wealth and power. They have lost their moral bearing and now are making their political perk walk. It’s not a crime to seek out money, power and prestige honestly and legally, but to shade out their past incapacitations and to overcome narcissistic from childhood, at times this desire for new life is so strong that they breach the ethical standards that previously grounded their conducts which has transformed into a bizarre. We are not knocking them off their pedestal but rather imploring them to avoid the current pitfalls they are headed to and devote themselves to the calculus of their inner compass.  They require reframing their leadership from being a hero to being servant of the people by maintaining the equilibrium of moral discipline.

We were full of expectations that the county Administration will uphold integrity and fight corruption both the “big and the small”. Instead, their offices have become the panoramic view of the architecture of the counties corruption.  Without debunking to unmask the facts on corruption, and, not to imperil possible ongoing investigation by the various government agencies, is it not true that the governor himself has transferred all juicy and major construction units and projects to his contacts and trust companies at inflated prices? How about disregard to due diligence or lack of it in public contracting and procurement procedures? Denial has never solved a problem and we hope he won’t attempt in this case.

There is a cogency in saying corruption by public officers entrusted with responsibilities is not alien to the Kenyan society, rather the Wajir leadership has shamefully glorified it as acceptable means of status elevation as all too sudden. They have bombarded the county with emergency of novae-riche class syndrome whose wealth pedigree could only be traced to the gubernatorial results of 2013.

Ironically, the governor and a number of his officers are recipients of the generosity of mankind by way of charity from their childhood. Yet one year in office they are unable to come into terms with the pompous appellation of power. Do they think or expect us to fold our hands akimbo and pretend of these existences?   In the bottom line, leadership that thrives on the policy of to rob “Peter” to pay “Paul” can be assured of the support of “Paul”