Harry S Truman, the 33rd president of America, once opined that " if we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government, which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state".

No one conversant with our leaders would doubt that moral values are of secondary importance to them.We are saddled with loudmouths and masqueraders to the mantle of leadership who often go off at the mouths without engaging their brains first. The august House is today the theatre of the absurd where dishonourable members of Parliament carry water bottles, guns and pepper sprays to intimidate others.

It is where cowardly men prove they are macho by assaulting women legislators even as the latter prove they are equally vile. While Truman had the benefit of history and its application in leadership; history, and the lessons therein, elude the Kenyan legislator.

There is no shortage of educated men and women in our National Assembly, which also seeks to set the threshold for political leadership at the acquisition of a university degree. Yet, if knowledge acquired over years studying cannot be brought to bear when circumstances demand it, why not just lay emphasis on a physique that can soak some punches and a mouth big enough to out-shout any megaphone?

It is this vacuity in individuals occupying influential positions that has succeeded in portraying the government as totalitarian; a government that does not believe in the rights of the individual. A government that relies on its superior numbers in Parliament to push through legislation camouflaged as representative, but which ultimately serves a select few.

In December 2014, Jubilee Members of Parliament forcibly passed the Security Laws (amendment) bill despite the acrimony inside parliament. Sections of the laws that sought to infringe on the rights and freedoms of Kenyans and the media were mercifully annulled by the High Court later. Last week, there was a replay during the passage of amendments to the Electoral Laws drawn up by a Joint Select Parliamentary Committee a few months ago. One side reneged on a negotiated agreement citing reasons that negate some of the achievements Jubilee has been trumpeting.

Take the main reason why Jubilee is not entirely comfortable with electronic voter identification and result transmission; erratic power supply. Leader of majority in parliament Aden Duale claimed more than 2,000 villages, 25 per cent of the land mass, lack power. How does this reconcile with the assurance by Deputy President William Ruto more than 2 million homes and virtually every primary school in the country have been connected to the national grid? In early 2015, President Kenyatta commissioned an extra 140 megawatts of power at Ol Karia, Naivasha that would have two outcomes; make outages history and bring down the cost of power and with it, living. If anything registered, it was the equivalent of adding a glass of water to the Indian Ocean and sitting back contended the volume of water had gone up.

After the recent fracas that saw Opposition MPs walk out of Parliament allowing Jubilee to pass the contentious amendments, the Opposition sought recourse in court. Fearing possible annulment, Duale injudiciously picked on presiding Judge George Odunga, claiming the Judge was partisan.

Ominously, the Opposition signalled they would resort to street demonstrations to force the Government to listen and the latter's reaction was predictable; bring it on! Granted, picketing and demos are legit, but let's not be deluded that demos can remain peaceful over a long period of time. This is where history should inform the decisions our leaders take.

A simple act of self-immolation by a street hawker in Algeria in 2011 soon after the start of the Arab spring in December 2010 in Tunisia, the January 25, 2011 Revolution in Egypt and their ripple effects saw well entrenched dictators ousted. Libya's strongman Muamar Qaddafi, though somewhat likeable, did not survive.

The Egyptian revolution began as peaceful sit-ins that turned chaotic and earned President Hosni Mubarak a prison stint. Powerful despots like Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Taylor, individuals who considered themselves God's gift to humanity, are in jail. The American Revolution that lasted 18 years starting 1765 has lessons for leaders imposing their will on their subjects.

The same reasons that lit the tinder box in the Arab world; unemployment, corruption and the suppression of the people's rights are suffocating millions of poor Kenyans, which is why leaders must weigh their utterances carefully.

Regrettably, these are portent lessons remnants of the now defunct URP led by Duale miss, and could land Kenya in trouble.

We must avoid a repeat of 2008.