Mutua has shown the way with a clear vision

The Standard on Saturday

The art of leadership can be a minefield. You have to learn to navigate the porous road to prosperity and empower your subjects. In Kenya we have all-too-often seen leaders bickering in the media and on public forums against each other instead of working with each other. We have seen Governor’s and MP’s quarrelling in public, buoyed by an insatiable pride and ego to rise above each other and outduel each other in an mindless powergame that has more losers than winners.

Often, the lack of vision and clarity of goals has been the hallmark of leadership. But yesterday Machakos County Governor Alfred Mutua demonstrated there is a crop of leaders who want to go against the terrible Kenyan norm of leadership and show they have a vision for a better tomorrow for the people they serve.

Machakos city is a very ambitious undertaking that will require the input of the central and county Government and all leaders from that county to be in synch for it succeed. Failure, as Governor Mutua announced yesterday, is not an option.

By any measure, the vision of Machakos city can be replicated across the country. There are counties still stuck in a rut with the old ways of doing things. Leaders are reading from different scripts and engaged in empty verbiage and endless fighting. The era of electioneering is over.

It is time for leaders to deliver what they pledged to voters. Mutua has shown the way forward with a clear vision of purpose. The goals may sound lofty, but that is where every journey begins: with a dream. The future truly belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.