It's wrong to attack those who hold contrary views

**Gatundu North MP Moses Kuria at Kitui stadium during the BBI rally before he was later allowed on the dais and given a seat**. [Emmanuel Wanson]

I am a proud alumnus of the Hill School in Eldoret. Under the leadership of the indefatigable Robert Paul Scott, the school was way ahead of its time in many respects. In an age where little children were there to be seen and not heard, we were allowed the freedom to express ourselves, a departure from other institutions of the time.

Years later, Hill Schoolians, as they call themselves, continue to hold their own in any crowd. Their self-assurance makes then natural leaders in any field. Indeed, some presently hold elective positions in both parliaments.

Hill Schoolians credit their success to an enabling environment where respect was earned rather than demanded, where arguments were settled by wit rather than the short end of a teacher’s stick. Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Adow was not as fortunate. Mr Adow tells of his primary school days growing up in Garissa and how teachers were the undisputed seats of all knowledge.

He remembers the day he was severely caned for using the word “colour-blind” in his English essay, a word the teacher was unfamiliar with and could not countenance the fact that his pupil was one jump ahead. To the teacher, it was the height of disrespect!

Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria was recently manhandled by goons at a Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) rally in Kitui. He was frog-marched from the dais where he had sought a seat ostensibly because he had been disrespectful to the Head of State.

Kuria ejection

In a video clip doing the rounds, senior Kitui politicians were heard demanding the ejection of Mr Kuria from the rally, but the crowd would have none of it. Instead, they demanded that he be given a seat among other invited guests.

Questions abound. What is this disrespect that Kuria is accused of? Why is it that any voice of dissent against the BBI is regarded indecorous behaviour? Why must any difference of political opinion be settled by vituperation and fisticuffs? Why must a citizen’s free will, including universal suffrage, be subjugated to that of a politician’s under threat of violence?

It is difficult to determine the sort of respect that the political class demands. Perhaps they require that citizens genuflect as they would to a monarch. Perhaps they long for ingratiating behaviour towards those in authority. But times have changed, and leaders are no longer regarded as lords of the land but servants of the people. In fact, it is mostly the geriatrics in leadership positions who keep calling for obsequious respect as though relics of the old colonial order.

Because the BBI proposes fundamental changes to Kenya’s Constitution, it must be debated and subjected to great scrutiny. Any misgivings that citizens may have about it should not be misconstrued as rebellion or disrespect.

Sh4.9 trillion

If anything, Kenyans have been far too passive in the face of the Jubilee administration’s mismanagement of the economy. Two years to the end of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s final term, media reports count at least 1,356 projects valued at Sh4.9 trillion that are incomplete.

Most are way behind schedule, and it is doubtful that the country has the resources to complete them. One wonders how the president if he ever came back as a powerful premier as some have proposed, would improve on his administration’s dismal performance. One also wonders what new ideas retiring governors would bring to the leadership table in the proposed regional administrative structures that would potentially perpetuate their hold on power.

After the mistreatment of Kuria and others of a contrarian disposition, who have asked such probing questions, many are no longer sanguine about the prospects of the BBI. It certainly does not seem to foster the right environment for its promised peace dividend, nor does it seem to capture the essence of the Constitution, which expressly provides for leadership renewal every five years.

This is especially important because leaders who overstay their welcome tend to a culture of entitlement. Instructively, the demands for respect have proliferated among those who have served more than two terms in elective positions. Many of these are disconnected from their electorate and cannot identify with the vast majority’s inability to meet basic needs.

The Kitui fiasco is a precursor of times to come. A youthful and enlightened electorate will no longer be content to be dictated to by jaded politicians. Respect must be earned through service delivery and not given gratuitously as has been in the past.

Mr Khafafa is a public policy analyst