Mashujaa Day: What Kenyans expect to hear from their President

President William Ruto inspects a guard of honour during Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Day celebrations held at the Embakasi Garrison on October 14, 2023. [PSCU]

Mashujaa Day gives President William Ruto a good chance to revisit his bottom-up philosophy. 

Will President Ruto navigate his speech to create a plot of a satisfied and hopeful country befitting heroic celebrations? 

The president will be expected to redefine the bottom-up heroism philosophy he enthusiastically articulated in his 2022 Mashujaa Day speech.

He will need to examine the government’s pass rate on its promises in agriculture, housing, access to credit, universal health care, digital superhighway, rule of law and education. These issues only constituted eight of the president's 20-page speech during the October 2022 Mashujaa celebrations.

Land evictions, amidst domestic and global economic crises are painful. Our eyeballs are bulging for seeing images of Mavoko evictions. What will our head of state say regarding these ongoing evictions?

The nation is waiting to hear what happened to the hustler government’s resolve to have “an orderly human society that respects the rights of everybody” and “zero tolerance to inhuman evictions” witnessed in the former regime.

Expectedly, the president will recognise Kenyan marathoner Kelvin Kiptum, who set a world record for men of 2:00:35 early this month. 

The head of state will also be expected to tell the nation if the bottom-up philosophy is still honest enough to endure in practice.

On his first Mashujaa Day in 2022, he congratulated Kenyans for ensuring the August 2022 elections were peaceful. During the 2023 Mashujaa Day, he should commend Kenyans for enduring the hard economic times and all its anecdotal crises.

It will be prudent if the president explains to Kenyans what happened after his government took power and how long they will subsist.

During the last Mashujaa Day, his guest was Mr John Ochieng, a new Ongata Rongai homeowner. The president promised that in future, we would have many beneficiaries of affordable housing scheme like Mr Ochieng, given he (Ochieng) became a homeowner only a month after the hustler administration was installed.

The nation will wait to hear how many new homeowners we have bred in the last 12 months.

Moreover, the nation will expect an update on the Hustler Fund. During the last Mashujaa Day, the head of state promised to launch the fund on December 1, 2022, which he faithfully did. Kenyans would like to get an update on the success level of this project and the future of their savings, which are not fully accessible to them.

The prime promise for the youth during the 2022 Mashujaa Day was the plan to help them enter the global digital economy. The government was poised to invest in the digital superhighway and the creative economy.

Has the government started enabling transformation, productivity and overall competitiveness through universal broadband as promised? How far has the government gone with its plan to lay out an additional 100,000km fibre-optic cable network?

During his first Mashujaa Day, President Ruto promised that all government services would be at the most excellent convenience to citizens “through digitisation and automation of all critical government processes.” If I am not wrong, Kenyans have been complaining over delayed new generation number plates and travel passports.

There are ponderous issues that Dr Ruto promised during the 2022 Mashujaa Day. Some critical matters were mentioned on in a passing in his speech. For example, the president dedicated only 123 words to education issues.

This time, we hope the president will reduce content that addresses external issues because there are still pressing domestic problems on hustlers’ food security, housing, access to credit, universal health care, digital economy, the rule of law and education. We are yet to move, and if we have, it is not too much of a forward.