Is Mr President listening to anything new or is he okay with same old music

Every so often, everyone requires to hold a conversation with himself. Albert Camus has called it “dialogue with your soul.” In Camus’s context, God talks to himself. He interrogates his divinity, his wisdom and his omnipresence. He wonders whether he is truly God. So how does he even know that he is God? What does eternity mean to him?

Camus comes across as a little iconoclastic, a little profane even. How dare you even begin imagining of God doubting himself? Yet, isn’t there huge merit in Camus’s musings about God’s reflection about his divinity? God, as we understand him, is the ultimate perfection. The lesson here remains that if he who is so perfect can have moments of doubt about his circumstances, who are we that we may believe ourselves to be so good? How so good could we possibly be, that whenever things go wrong we look outwards for answers? Isn’t there a strong and valid case for looking inwards for the answers that have evaded us for so long? The Psalmist confirms thiswhere he has said, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42: 11)

Introspection is particularly of the essence both in moments of distress and victory. You will come to terms with yourself if you repose in sincere and reflective solitude. As you take time away from society, your honest thoughts are your only companion. Who are you? What are you about? Why are your circumstances the way they are? How have you contributed to them? Indeed, why do you do the things that you do? How havethey led to the present moment? Where will your next action take you?

In adversity, refusing to stare the truth in the eye will only mess you up further. Nor will scapegoating help. You need to ask your soul, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” Certainly such a moment is here, for President Kenyatta, even as he gets off the ICC hook. The moment of relief is welcome for the President and for Kenya. Things have not been good.

Long before he ascended to power, he was a troubled soul, reflecting about The Hague and how to navigate his way through that labyrinth. Alas, Providence has saved the day. Yet things are still not good. The country remains divided and troubled. Maybe the President can now singularly focus on governing without anxiety over the sword of Damocles that has been the ICC. But will he? Onlytime and his personal deportment now that he is free will tell.

President Kenyatta’s detractors may find twisted delight in the mockery that says, “Here, bomb! There, bomb! Everywhere, bomb! Bomb! Bomb!” But this is no laughing matter. The President must focus on this in the spirit of prayer and reflection. It is not time to throw celebratory parties. It is time for hard self-questioning. For while ordinary folk and scoundrels have snored away in the night, the man in State House has said with Shakespeare’s King Henry IV:

How many thousands of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O gentle sleep,

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses to forgetfulness . . .

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

But why would the crowned head lie uneasy? For, President Kenyatta remains a burdened man. He emerged from the woodwork this week, after the saga of “Your security is in your own hands,” to proclaim that the country was at war. Here was a troubled head of state who took to task those he said were failing the test of patriotism. Among them, the media and the political Opposition. You were invoked to decide on which side you are – are you with the country or with haters and extremists?

I don’t know what went on in the head of state’s mind during the few days he was out of the limelight. Whatever the case, he came out to dismiss former Cabinet Secretary for Interior, Joseph Lenku and the former Inspector General of Police, David Kimaiyo.

It must remain unclear forever whether the President reflected about the dismissals during his brief retreat into his own space, or not. It would seem, however, that he dismissed them because Al Shabab hit Mandera for the second time in eight days and left in its wake worse disaster than before. Public outrage was boilingover, for the President had refused to heed public outcry against insecurity. He had in fact praised the two now disgraced former public officials, affirming that they had done very well. One was set for national honours next week. So what changed?

Now that he is free, President Kenyatta must reflect deeply about the voices he listens to. My friend, Ahamednasir Abdullahi thinks that there are no such voices. The President does not listen to anybody, but to himself, he says.

If he listened to anybody, Ahmed says, some of themore obvious tragedies that have befallen us would have been avoided. I don’t agree. The President listens to some voices – I don’t know whose. But whoever they may be, they are wrong voices. They tell him that all is well even when they should know that things could never be worse. They tell him to come out and speak angrily to his people, to tell them that their security is in their hands.

These voices have placed the President in the mould of Rehoboam King of Judah. Rehoboam refused to listen to the counsel of age. He took instead the poor counsel of the digital generation of his time. The outcome was the division of the Kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 14). President Kenyatta must now find a valuable silent moment. He must say to his soul, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42: 11)

The President must ask himself who he is? Why is he in office? Is it for self-interest or for his country and God? Is it for narrow group interests? Is it for Kenya? What is Kenya? How does he want to be remembered when he is no longer in power? Where does he want to take this country? Can the people around him really help him to get this country out of the woods, now that he has sacked Lenku and Kimaiyo and he is out of the woods himself?

Is he about to start listening to new voices, or is he happy with the same old chorus of “us’ versus “them?” He may wish to recall with King David, a man after God’s heart that, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by the streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.” (Psalm 1: 1 – 3). Seek the divine wisdom of God, Mr. President. Have a fruitful day, a fresh day. God bless.