Sort out security and corruption to succeed

I am reading this book by Tony Blair - ‘On Leadership: Lessons for the 21st Century’ - that I wish our leaders would find time to peruse. It’s a small book with such gems I think our leadership could get a lesson or two.

It has made me think: if perchance I was made President for one term (pun intended) I would work on just two or three large-ticket projects that will set me right with my people.

And by projects, I don’t mean physical projects such as roads and dams. I mean things that will propel this country on the right track. And one does not even need documents by highly paid consultants to get us going.

Of course, it is easy to generate rich AI-generated manifestos promising milk and honey, but the reality is many of these documents are usually dumped in the first dustbin outside State House even before the president is sworn into office.

I am sure if you asked people in government today what their manifesto says, they would have to dust the document from the archives and try to acquaint themselves with its contents.

As President, my hierarchy of needs would start with sorting out security. In the hierarchy of needs, food, shelter and security rank highly. We have a semblance of success with the first two for many Kenyans, but security should be given the attention it deserves.

If you sort out security, local and foreign investors will not need any inducement to invest. If they invest, people will have better shelter and food and the virtuous circle continues. That’s why I have never understood the so-called affordable housing project costing trillions of shillings while there are more urgent things that could have better impact in the long term.

And then, corruption. I remember former President Uhuru Kenyatta saying, in a frustrated tone, that the country loses Sh2 billion daily to corruption. Given that the current regime has perfected the art of dipping their sticky pockets into the country’s treasury, this figure has certainly doubled or tripled, meaning we are losing trillions of shillings to this vice.

What does it take it to tackle corruption? We need a clean person who will tackle the menace, and it must start from the top otherwise, the leadership will have no moral authority to condemn the chicken thief while they are raiding the Treasury.

Sometimes, I am tempted to contemplate extra-judicial means of dealing with the corrupt because the system takes too long to be concluded. In good old days, they had perfected a way of dealing with such miscreants: they would look for hot tar, pour it on the naked miscreant, adorn him with many feathers, and frog march him around the town before quartering him.

It might sound barbaric (and it is) but that is the thing we might need to do for those who steal from the public. That was in England. Closer to home, my people used to put criminals in a beehive, look for the steepest hill and let them roll. I would imagine the spinning and the bumpy ride would leave such a fellow in a clearer state of mind.

Can you imagine what a trillion shillings can do for Kenya? I can never forget a visit to a school in the slums of Nakuru, where a school meal, worth Sh30, was out of reach for most of the kids. I can never forget the face of the kids who did not have a meal, watching those lucky enough to eat.

I wonder whether a visit by those in power would soften their hearts, if they have any. Would they see in the eyes of these children the torment they have to go through for no fault of their own? But maybe I am asking for too much: people who take money that would otherwise be better utilised in feeding schoolchildren must have a heart of granite.

 -The writer is a communications consultant