The next president of Kenya needs a youth manifesto

There is no ambiguity about the fact that youth votes will influence the 2017 presidential outcome.

In previous elections, the content of party manifestos was used to canvass the support of the youth. While the manifestos have managed to draw the youth into the electoral orbit, they have hardly offered demonstrable pathways to tackling the socio-economic issues that still plague them.

Moreover, nothing is more disempowering for the youth than the belief that the systems only serve a privileged few whose philosophy is embedded in a materialistic race. The disillusionment this creates can only be imagined.

Nevertheless, people prefer remembering to imagining. So remember anecdotes about how the mismatch between youthful aspirations and their fulfillment has led to discontentment and apathy. Needless to say, youth resilience has been fighting back and we have seen many excel in sports, education, innovation, business and the arts.

In the forthcoming elections, therefore, we need to see a change in the substance of youth discourse that transcends what the current reductionist political taxonomy calls it - just another precious voting bloc. It is time for a youth-specific manifesto.

The fact that such a manifesto could bring to bear the total sum of youth intelligence on how to move the country forward is not the only reason why the next president of Kenya should have one. It is a good reason nonetheless.

Of course, getting the youth out of the lowest rungs of economic development will neither be a thesis of youth-led proposals nor the antithesis to the next government's interventions, rather a synthesis that reconciles both.

Huge resources have been funnelled towards youth programmes and statistics adduced to show progress. But as it turns out, youth empowerment is not only a matter of mathematics and geometry. It is time for a subjective inquiry into the status of the Kenyan youth, demystify the averages and give every young person a location, a social affiliation and a gender.

The many resolutions produced for youths during rallies have not successfully prevented them from floundering in unemployment, drug abuse or disease. It is evident that the present youth engagement ecosystem is unfit and must be dismantled.

The youth on the other hand must demand a functioning system because the guardians of the status quo are always ready with oxygen tents to keep it breathing.

A youth-specific manifesto would push through the reforms required to get the economy working for the greatest number of youths. Going to elections without clear structural proposals to tackle youth inequality will only delay the demographic dividend.

There is no gainsaying that for many youths, the light of hope is about to fade and the lamp of faith about to flicker. They need opportunities now, not 10 years from now.

In the coming months, the tribe card will be at its most primal, obscuring debate on real youth issues. "Ethnicity is one of those false friends" asserts Lebanese-French writer, Amin Maalouf.

I agree with him. Beyond identity, a youth manifesto would be rooted in a new compact that strengthens the ability of young people to set the terms and timetable for their dreams, and the next government's ability to be accountable to its youth. Young people have been victims of far too many broken promises.

The beginning of the true wealth of nations is in the productivity of its youth.