Unemployment has contributed greatly to the bitterness, anger and frustration the young people in this country are going through. Of course, King Kaka’s ‘Wajinga Nyinyi’ song, and all the rejoinders that have been released since, point to a distraught young generation.
It is sad to see young people start to lose faith in their own country. Even more, one of the rejoinders to ‘Wajinga Nyinyi’ went further to say how religion is part of the problem. The artiste says if you don’t attend religious services, you will not be supported if you get problems such as death in the family. This understanding reduces religious services to some sort of golf club reserved for members only.
As we begin the new year, you, young people, can look up to yourselves with renewed hope. Cursing as a sign of deep seated frustration is good psychologically. You bring out the poison in the heart. That far is fine, but it won’t change much of the political dealings responsible for the wastage you experience.
Anger and a sense of hopelessness can be turned into something positive. The negative energies spent in lamentation can be a gold mine for this country.
The amount of time spent chasing politicians and singing their praises, doing the dirty work of spewing hate against those with different opinions will only aggravate the helplessness you experience.
One way you can redeem yourself is to be proactive. Take opportunities that are available and make use of them. Look at the Constitution of Kenya, it clearly states that anyone above 18 years with a clean integrity record can vie for an elective post.
Next regime
If you, the youth, below 35 – I will stretch it to 39 – years, stand together and vie for the many elective posts available from ward to the presidency in 2022 or thereabout, at the beginning of the next regime you will be right in the mix of decision making, particularly on where tax payer money should be spent.
You, the youth, are the majority in this country. You qualify to be leaders. Yes, as you repeatedly say, you were promised to be leaders of tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes, you realise the older people are not giving way so that you can take up their jobs.
Somehow, you are stuck in the past and today; there is no tomorrow for you.
No one wants to feel trapped. There is a tomorrow and you can grab it legitimately without violence, without anger, without frustration, without being used as youth wingers for the so called bigwigs and surely, competitively.
It will be great to see the youth build solidarities amongst themselves so that they can offer a strong political competition to the 40 plus.
With the energy you possess, the technology skills at your fingertips and the desire to improve your own lives, it will be in your interest to start, like the politicians have done, “murmuring” amongst yourself who should vie for what seat.
Strong campaign
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Spend 2020 murmuring, identify your strong candidates so that come 2021, you will unleash your campaign machines and in 2022, put your best foot forward.
When the results are finally released, it will be such a joy to see that your efforts give you at least half of the seats in the County Assemblies, National Assembly and Senate. It will be such a change if you also give a go at the top seat, and who knows, if Obama made it in the US, why not one of you?
Your inexperience and lack of campaign money should not be an excuse for not attempting to compete with the age 40 plus. Make a strong resolution in this new year to be creative.
Job creation in this technology driven society is about innovation. You may not have the money to a mount a strong campaign, but by engaging creativity and imagination, you can surprise yourselves that you have what it takes to win elective seats.
Elective posts are about persuasion not violence, intimidation and thuggery as we have seen in the past. You can transform our political campaigns from the roguish behaviour we are used to to running clean, credible and decent elections.
No need to repeat what you know very well. Most of you are wasting away because of the mega corruption in this our country. The Catholic Church is running an anti-corruption campaign called ‘Break the Chains of Corruption’.
Yes, fight corruption so that you break new ground for reasonable opportunities. Trust in yourselves and seek those elective seats that shape your future.Take a leap and step into tomorrow!
A very happy and blessed 2020 to each one of you!
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