Uhuru Kenyatta reads from same script as founding President Jomo Kenyatta

Five decades after independent Kenya’s flag was hoisted in defiance of all the odds the country had surmounted to attain freedom and self-governance, many of the wars she prepared herself to fight on that Madaraka eve are yet to be won.

Instead, constant battles with outside forces, as well as her inner conscience have conspired to ensure she is always in a state of war; fighting one fire after another, derailing her from the true path to all sorts of freedom.

At independence, with the winds of Pan Africanism sweeping through the continent, Kenya’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta wrote the following on his thoughts of his country’s Madaraka in a special issue of the Pan African Magazine:

“Treat this day with joy. Treat it also with reverence. For this is the day for which our martyrs died. Let us stand in silence and remember all those who suffered that our land might be free, but did not live to see its fulfillment. Let us remember their great faith, their abiding knowledge that the victory would be won.”

Cramped wings

“We are like birds which have escaped from a cage. Our wings have cramped. For a while we must struggle to fly and regain our birthright for the free air. We shall make our mistakes, but these will be only like the temporary flutterings of the escaped bird. Soon our wings will be strong and we shall soar to greater and greater heights.”

But is seems, the fluttering of our wings has turned into an eternal struggle to set ourselves free and fly to the heights Kenya was destined for.

For, half a century later, the problems the first indigenous Government was confronted with, remain a permanent fixture in the current government’s agenda for the people.

“Many of our people suffer in sickness. Many are poor beyond endurance. Too many live out narrow lives beneath a burden of ignorance…we must work hard to fight our enemies - ignorance, sickness and poverty,” Jomo said.

Last year, in his first address as the fourth President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta’s speech echoed that of his father years earlier: “We have to create ladders of opportunity that will enable our brothers and sisters living in poverty to move to the middle class.”

Current data from the World Bank shows more than 15.4 million citizens in rural Kenya live in abject poverty.

Despite the successes of the hugely popular universal Free Primary Education scheme set up by the Narc Government, up to 1 million children remain out of school as recently as last year, according to a UNESCO report.

The report “Education For All Monitoring Report 2012” by UNESCO noted that while this is almost half the number of children out of school in 1999, it is still the ninth highest in the world.

Hundreds of thousands more do not transit to higher levels of education. Sickness still lingers over our shoulders with disease burden from emerging conditions such as cancer posing challenges to the current as well as previous administrations.

At Kenya’s infancy, the Shifta war wreaked havoc in what was then the Nothern Frontier District. Currently, Northern Kenya still remains a headache for security forces.

Incursions from neighbouring states and runaway insecurity from warring communities causing untold bloodbaths and suffering.

Tribalism still reigns supreme in public service as well as private sector.

“Our shared aim is to end ethnic tensions and rivalry and to unite all our citizens. I am determined to provide leadership towards the attainment of this noble objective. A united Kenya has tremendous potential for growth and development. Indeed, Kenya is not a collection of 42 tribes who have to live together,” President Uhuru said last year.

As the Jubilee Government edges even further into its administration, Kenyans, largely are faced with the same dangers that looked them in the face 50 years ago. Some have become less amplified, others more while new challenges have also emerged.

The toil ahead

Corruption, tribalism, war, terrorism pose the same challenge. Even as the nation seems to lose the plot, the hard times were already predicted: “As we participate in pomp and as we make merry at this time, remember this - we are relaxing before the toil that is to come,” said Jomo in his address.

Granted, the country never stood still as the rest of the world marched on. She crawled and heaved herself forward.

Even when the odds were unsurprisingly against her, she summoned her resilience and pushed on through. But she was meant for much more than this, as greatness ought to underline every outcome of the beneficiaries of her hard earned freedom.

“This nation – Kenya – will be as great as its people make it. So I ask you to make this day of freedom a day of dedication. I ask you to dedicate yourselves to the memory of those who have gone before us and to those who must follow us. I ask you to resolve to put aside all selfish desires and to strain every ounce of muscle and brain to building a nation which shall honour our dead, inspire our living and prove a proud heritage for those who are yet to come,” Jomo said.

To borrow from the president’s first Madaraka Day speech, as we cast our eyes towards the horizon of possibility and promise, let us all believe in ourselves, and let us all have faith that we can make Kenya a prosperous, free, and wealthy country.