We have to reform Kenya and Kenyan’s minds

I don’t like comparing Kenya to her neighbors. Having traveled all the East African countries and the great lakes region countries severally and with an eye of a curious researcher, I find Kenya should be aspiring to be in the league of quite advanced nations you find Europe, America and some Asian countries. I say this because If I sample the level of democratic developments and the relatively freer media and civil society (though there have been recent attempts to claw back these gains) Kenya is relatively developed in some respects. I keep a close eye on political dynamics in countries in the region like Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Congo DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia and I don’t see comparisons to Kenya. Tanzania has one unique encouraging feature though. In as much as it has some dominance by one party, it is stable and promises a stable future. If it can only reform and kill the curse of many African states like corruption and skewed resource allocation, it would be fine. Unlike Kenya tribalism is not the main definition of getting top leadership. Unlike Kenya your pockets hardly defines you getting the top job in politics in that country. But that is the far it goes, when you want to see more vibrancy in other realms of democracy look at Kenya.

In Kenya we have learnt the hard way not to trust anyone and I see why there is so much skepticism about leadership in Kenya.  The worries about leadership are warranted. Leadership defines so much for any organization. It’s the character of the leadership that set the pace of so much in a nation. Troubling though is that our nation has very many desirous people to be leaders but few cares the character and quality of leadership offered when opportunities arise. That is why we are perpetually a nation of whiners especially on the behavior of a big number of leaders.

Seemingly, there is also a challenge in making radical reforms that can transform the nation. Part of this is caused by the underlying political conditions. To reform this nation, it cannot happen without heads rolling at the hierarchy of leadership may it be in politics or at the civil service. To do this would require political hard balls. It would require huge risk taking and desire to just working for a legacy or for the sake of making the nation better. This implies then that change has to be engineered from the very top. Leadership is what creates the culture along the hierarchies. If the leadership engineers change and is intolerant to bad cultures and subcultures then some will quickly pick the momentum and with time the laggards or those clinging to evil will have to shift or be shoved aside.

To cultivate a new culture in a multi-ethnic and politically divided country along the same lines is a tough job. I listening to the President speech on Jamhuri day and at it I felt for him. The job is neither for the faint hearted nor for anyone who would love to keeps so many things postponed to be worked at later. It is also not a job meant to please everybody all the time. It is also not a job that would allow you a lot of peace of mind or comfort, at least not at the stage Kenya is in at present. Methinks to achieve some noble goals and requisite reforms to make Kenya prosperous, stable and peaceful, it will require very hard decisions to be made. The level of risk is close to dare even loose an election because some tribal bigots will be un-necessarily happy. Else it means playing along the prevailing culture, survive to the next term and start rolling reforms after the second term is secure. It is also not easy then as succession politics will kick in from the first day of re-election. We certainly have to reform if we hope to develop our country but the difficult task of changing the mindset has to be engineered from the top.

 

 

Harrison Mwirigi Ikunda

Nairobi

Researcher and consultant