By Oyunga Pala
For the longest time, we heard the phrase “The youth are leaders of tomorrow” replayed like a radio station jingle. In primary school, it held a lot of promise. By high school, we had gotten cynical and at college, it was outrightly mocked.
Tomorrow did arrive, but all that remained was the same old and conservative political class. The face of Kenyan leadership has always been somewhat grandfatherly. A career in Kenyan politics began right after retirement from civil service in your mid 50s, matured in one’s 60s and with a little persistence and lots of luck, presidency would be deemed possible in your 70s. The Young Turks were men in their late 50s, many who had grandchildren.
Therefore, to finally see a younger man sitting at the helm of the State is going to take some adjustment. President Uhuru Kenyatta is 51 and that is young comparatively. Kenya’s founding president Jomo Kenyatta was 71 when he assumed office.
Daniel Moi was 54 but he had been in the ranks for so long he had developed that conservative mzee persona. The symbolic rungu he carried had ‘old order’ written all over it. Mwai Kibaki was 71 and he looked very much his age.
President Uhuru comes across as sharing the same youthful swag as world’s new crop of young leaders. Barrack Obama is 51, UK’s David Cameron is 46, and Dmitry Medvedev, the current Prime Minister of Russia is 47. In Africa, the youngest president so far is Gambia’s Aids curing Yahya Jammeh who is 47. Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza is 49. That makes Uhuru Kenyatta the third youngest president in Africa.
Generally, young leaders are always admired because they offer hope and radical change, which is not necessarily a factor of age. Kim Jong-un of North Korea is 28 years old and his youthful trigger-happy antics are already a cause for concern.
But having a youngish leader means that they can relate to majority concerns, or so we hope. However, this changes the ambition script and places a lot of performance pressure on youngsters who are busy goal setting. Suddenly, merely owning two cars, a house in the suburbs and a college fund for the tots will seem so per se. To be taken seriously, you may probably need to descend in a helicopter.
Bloaded
The high achiever standard in Kenya is way up there and it is not enough to hold a prestigious office — you have to flash serious money to boot.
It is the new leadership narrative in town. Call it the hustler generation if you will, and their clarion call to leadership is wealth. Nairobi’s first senator, Mike Mbuvi aka Sonko, is part of this new posse’ of the young, powerful and loaded.
In Kenya, it does not seem as important to question what one has done to get rich. In the national psyche, if one does not have money, they cannot be of much use to the deprived masses.
In the past, people expected leaders to accumulate wealth overtime, but nowadays we are part of a generation that is more impressed by overnight sensations. Young people want it all and the means always justify the ends.
Therefore, Kenya’s fourth president, his Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta has big role in managing this lopsided expectation. I sincerely hope he will find the wisdom needed to keep the country’s restless youth grounded.
