Succession: Uhuru debt to country is a ‘clean’ successor

This past Mashujaa day, I sat and pondered what a hero is and what kind of hero Kenya needs. My definition of a hero is one who by self-sacrifice endeavours and succeeds in making the lives of others better. This is a simple measure but it disqualifies many.

For example, it disqualifies any MP, Senator, CS who in these hard economic times has two body guards, a fueling guzzling SUV and overlaps every time we are in traffic. It disqualifies the CS of Transport who has not been in a matatu since he got into office, disqualifies the Health CS who has never pretended to be a patient and tried to see how long it takes to get medical attention at Kenyatta National Hospital.

Makes no sacrifice

It is clear that the sacrifice aspect of a hero is clearly lacking in all our leaders. I have not seen a shorter motorcade, I haven’t seen them stuck in traffic with the rest of us. They have not walked a metre in our shoes let alone a mile. This tells me that most of our leaders have no empathy for the plight of the hoi polloi and they imagine we are doing well in the dirt.

Just like how pigs get fat on the dredges we throw out. Like the rich man in the Bible, they expect that the crumbs from their table are enough to feed us, the poor and paralysed Lazarus of today.

They seem content with the knowledge that poor people will always exist and someday, somehow the 6 per cent GDP growth will get to us via trickle-down economics, whichever requires as little work and care from them as possible. Whereas in Namibia the current leader of opposition spent a week in a shack in Windhoek to get in touch with the nation’s poor, in Kenya leaders only pass by.

The fact is, our nation has insensitive leaders, insulated from our reality by the comfort and luxury our taxes afford them. The result of this is they feel no need for a revolution nor for proper reform. To them, corruption buys tickets to Europe for holiday, to us corruption means no medicines in our hospitals; to them corruption is a new block of flats, to us it is another family living in the ghetto; to them corruption is a home with a revolving dining table, to us it is nothing to serve on our ordinary table. No Cabinet member is yet to report on what they are doing to minimise corruption in their dockets. May be because to them, it is not a problem.

These insensitive leaders are the same ones who look at ascending into office as a matter of paying a debt and not a matter of advancing the nation. Our MPs then shift alliances to the highest bidder, picking envelopes of money to sing the tunes of one leader without a requisite change in mind. What this means is that in 2022 we will not vote for heroes, but we will vote to pay debts.

We will vote to satisfy the elite, with no promise of a return on our vote. If our leaders are to be listened to carefully one will quickly realise that some important phrases are missing from the discourse: First, no one speaks of ending poverty in Kenya, no one talks of ending corruption and no one talks about ensuring the gains of free education and healthcare are entrenched and improved. Instead all they talk about all the day long, is who they will support for no reason other than winning the election.

Heroes have vision

There can’t be a hero without vision, not in country that must move forward. Most of the leaders who fill our news and media time are bereft of ideas and thoughts on the future of this country. They can’t articulate how Kenya will cope with global warming, or how Kenya will become a first world country or simply how Kenya will eradicate hunger.

The only science they know is the science of tribal arithmetic and their strategies include stealing so much money so that they can buy the presidency. Instead of planning to save the masses, they plan to explore the foolishness of the sheep for the gain of the wolf.

For fighting against corruption more than any other president in our history, for shaking the hand of his political enemy at a time when he didn’t have to and thereby bringing calm into the country, President Uhuru Kenyatta is my hero. However, his failure will come if he continues to keep the company of his Cabinet. Someone needs to remind him that bad company corrupts good morals. When he met with farmers, he saw their pain and declared payment for sugarcane and maize farmers, and realised his CS had let him down. When he met with SMEs he realised that his Governors and CSs had let him down.

The other reason President Kenyatta may fail the shujaa test is if he allows his chosen successor to be a corrupt and morally bankrupt fellow who will no doubt, undermine the fight against corruption and take us back to the slavery of poverty.

What he owes Kenya is a succession plan that will safeguard the country. That shujaa must himself be ridding himself of any corrupt gain and removing the corrupt from his inner court. The successor must echo the president on the fight against corruption, the Big 4 and on the peace initiative.

Fellow Kenyans, heed my words: don’t vote to pay debts, vote for a hero. Vote for someone who we know will fight corruption, vote for someone we know cares about the poor and the needy, vote for someone who has brilliant ideas about our future. Vote for a shujaa.

Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant. [email protected]