How Uhuru's message got lost in clutter

I am sure I am not the only one who was quite impressed with former Devolution Secretary Anne Waiguru; not just for her looks and exquisite dressing. There was a certain sparkle she brought into her office.

There was no doubt that she overshadowed her Cabinet colleagues whether by default or by design. When my colleague and I met her some time in 2014 before her world imploded, she was effusive about what Jubilee was up to. Her high-flown ideas about the NYS projects, Huduma Centres and cleaning the rot in the Civil Service were spoken with admirable conviction.

We exclaimed hooray when she said NYS graduates would help decongest the city's gridlocked roads. Forget about Governor Evans Kidero's ridiculous drums, hers sounded real and well-thought-out.

To the youth, hers was not the promise of white-collar jobs in the big cities, rather making the best with what they had and many loved it. And that with the simplest of tools; a wheelbarrow and shovel.

Huduma Centres were the one-stop shop that in one fell swoop had taken away the maddening malaise and nerve-breaking contortions of Civil Service bureaucracy. You needed an ID, you got it within the day; a business permit? In 24 hours and so much more.

In her own small world, Waiguru was wrestling down the status quo and dismantling the network that daily meted out injustices to the common man. She was fixing the small "hygienic" issues we struggle with every day. Her plans to audit the Civil Service and weed out ghost workers was revolutionary. Many Kenyans for sure know they get a raw deal from the pampered public service.

When UhuRuto were swept into victory in that highly contested March 2013 election, a lot of those who voted for them took comfort in their age. Set to retire in their 50s, would they live with the ridicule were they to flop? Not really, they must have thought. From their belly one could smell the burning stubbornness of youthful leaders impatient to impact their world.

In spite of the ignominy that followed her, Waiguru had shown that things could be done differently and the slow moving public service could be shaken. Listening to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto present their manifesto on Monday night, I pitied them as they struggled anxiously to summarise the story of four years in office and why they needed a second bite at the cherry.

In the beginning, it was clear that Mr Kenyatta had a mission to shake up the politics and lift Kenya into the league of serious countries. There was something about him that was different. But something seemed amiss on Monday night. Perhaps a lack a sense of accomplishment weighed heavily on him? May be, may be not. Was the message too cluttered? May be so. A 10-point promise is too dense for the masses to wrap their minds around it.

Indeed, the Uhuruto duo did little to fight off accusations of presiding over an unaffordable, misdirected public spending which coupled with unsound policy-making and a rise in government expenditure as a share of output, has bloated the budget and stoked inflation. Their plan to reduce unemployment didn't sound convincing given the realities on the ground. Indeed, many Kenyans are struggling to get by in life. Nor was there any solid undertaking to fight corruption.

When Tony Blair (one of UK's most successful Labour Party Prime Ministers) took over at Number 10 in 1997, he says his focus was on reforming the public service and social welfare. His eagerness, he reveals in his biography A Journey, was to alleviate suffering and injustice. And many credit his reforms for Labour's three consecutive election wins before he gave way for his dour deputy Gordon Brown in 2007.

Mark the difference; two things. All in all, the manifesto spelt out a little of many things denying it the focus needed to move things.

In his book, You are the Message, Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News an American news Channel, says to enrapt audiences, a speaker ought to be emotional, not intellectual and to keep to themes and avoid details.

"I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country," is one of Mr Blair's famous quotes. The Jubilee pair might want to take note of that.

Mr Kipkemboi is The Standard's OpEd Editor

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