We must look beyond partisan positions to what's good for Kenya

It has always been my contention that IQ and intelligence in general are not additive and neither are they cumulative.

Meaning that adding the number of heads does not necessarily lead to a higher level of intelligence in decisions made by a group. As they say too many cooks spoil the broth.

It is also my view that hunger of whatever kind lowers the IQ and dignity of the hungry; this was true for Esau and is true for anyone who is desperate to attain gratification to a pressing need.

Don’t believe me? Just get the bends at an inconvenient and unconventional place then tell me what it makes you do.

That being said, a crowd of poor and hungry people is likely to make very silly choices, and this brings me to my subject matter of the day. Democracy is the ability to muscle up the masses to vote for you.

It is therefore these same hordes of hungry (hunger here could be physical, or the hunger for justice, hunger for economic power etc.) people that vote in a leader.

It is in this setting that the unwritten rule of how democracy works is brought to the fore: a true leader must be able to make unpopular decisions sometimes against the wishes of his electorate.

This is true of Trump and his call to “lock her up” and will be true for any leader.

Indecision

This is the politician’s dilemma, and this is the acid test of true leadership, and it is a test that we are currently failing miserably at as a nation.

We have watched as masses of people raid a supermarket, hungry for justice, and we have watched another mob, hungry to bring order, rain tear gas in hostels. We are witnessing a time where, unfortunately, truth is relative.

There is NASA truth and Jubilee truth, NASA Judges and Jubilee Judges and we have a Jubilee parliament and a NASA parliament, we are even quite foolishly toying with a NASA country, versus a Jubilee Kenya, what nonsense!

The truth is one, and this truth can’t be determined by the masses.

It will be determined by the leader who stands for what isn’t NASA or Jubilee but for what is good for this nation, even if it is a much needed reprimand to the entire nation. We are walking on egg shells around each other hoping not to offend yet we know there can only be one truth, because there is only one Kenya.

We can’t have varied opinions about what is good for our nation and we can’t let the masses determine what is good by who shouts loudest on the streets.

If leaders chose to be led by the masses then the outcome will be clear one side will utterly hate the side that opposed them or the side they perceive did nothing as they fought for their hunger.

If the side that is on the street loses, then the side that isn’t on the street but wins will be considered privileged and as betrayers of the cause, whether the cause is real or imagined.

For these people then the campaigns cease to be logical and become emotional and these emotions are then considered fact.

Believe me it is no small task to argue with an emotion. It is these emotions that have created the two truths in our nation. We feel so strongly that we assume what we feel must therefore be true.

Moment of truth

It then behoves our leadership a certain sense of looking at our nation and leading our nation beyond just the elections.

The leaders must begin to do the opposite of what the masses seem to want. They must, like Nelson Mandela, realise that the anger and ire of the past cant lead us into the future.

Anger at IEBC and at the Judiciary will not lead us anywhere. The IEBC will not unite Kenya and neither will a few judges.

This is a political battle for the soul of a nation, whoever captures that soul will be on the right side of history.

The answer isn’t in winning political power. Neither is it removing people from positions. The question of the healing and prosperity of a nation isn’t answered by building roads; it is answered by building character.

It is the character of a nation that makes it succeed and as far as Kenya goes we have very bad manners.

We clap when Kenyan businesses go under and clap even louder when French firms move in. We vote for the corrupt and clap at their skill in theft.

We are happy at the evil that befalls the other side no matter how unfair.

This is our disease; we secretly hate each other and our politics has become an opportunity to exercise that hate without confrontation.

It is our passive aggressive vent for a very real vice.

Therefore I say that a true leader is the one who will take an antidote and inject sanity into our minds whether we like it or not.

That leader is the one I will vote for. Let he who has ears hear. 

Mr Bichachi is a communications strategist