How to have a Jamhuri Day we can be proud of

President Uhuru Kenyatta is escorted to the dias by Chief of Defence Forces General Samson Mwathethe (R) after inspecting a guard of honor during the 54th Jamhuri Day Celebrations at Kasarani Stadium. [Boniface Okendo/Standard]

Kenya has now been a republic for 55 years.

Some would argue that at 55, Kenya should have more to celebrate than it does. After all, our GDP was similar to that of Singapore and South Korea at the same time in 1963 before it started going south.

Others would argue that Kenya is a behemoth in the region, her economy unparalleled and her power the envy and the pride of East Africa. Whichever side of the divide one sits, we must agree on a few things.

The first thing we must agree on, is that during the 55 years, we have not had a civil war.

This is a miracle as far as Africa is concerned. In our neighbourhood, only Tanzania can claim a similar feat.

The fact that we are a mixture of tribes and communities who are strangers to democracy should have broken us. But we made it this far, albeit with a few bruises in 1982 coup attempt, the early ‘90s skirmishes and the 2007 post election violence.

The fact is that Kenyans are generally peaceful until elections time when suddenly we all become tribal zealots.

Further to that, Kenya has a functionally literate population whose drive for work and hustle is the envy of many. Ours is a hardworking population. We invest; we all have side hustles and we will walk miles to work at the drop of a hat.

Amazing people

In our resilience, we go to work come rain or sunshine. Entire neighbourhoods flood, but their residents still go to work. We are an amazing people. Convince us that quails are in demand somewhere in the world and we will overproduce them in a matter of months.

This is the mettle Kenyans are made of: resilient, innovative and fixers. Kenyans are no wimps, we subdue life, harness opportunities from thin air and turn a profit. It is credit to the people of Kenya that we are the only middle income country in Africa to achieve this status without an abundance of natural resources.

Kenya is also of course the home of champions. We have so many athletics champions that it is a foregone conclusion which flag will fly high in marathons throughout the world. We dominate the sport.

Our team exhibits top form playing in the top tiers of international rugby. We are the only country that produced a president for the United States of America and a judge for the International Criminal Court. We boast of a Nobel Prize winner and being top in the management of such multinational companies as Tesla.

Kenyans are winners. All we do is win.

There is much to celebrate in our nation, in ourselves and in the endowment that Kenya is. We have come this far thanks to the resilience of our people who have shouldered many forms of State oppression and heart ache.

We are excellent at picking themselves up by the bootstraps. But at the same time, there are a few facts that we need to take into consideration and fix as a nation.

One of them is that 16.6 million Kenyans live in abject poverty, without access to water, health facilities and basic food. In Turkana County, 87 per cent of people are living below the poverty line.

Escape poverty

I daresay that only 9,000 people in Turkana escape poverty per year out of a total poor population of 756,000. That means at the current rate, it will take 84 years for poverty to end in Turkana.

This is not a phenomenon of Turkana alone. Other countries such as Wajir, Narok, Kwale, Kilifi, and Busia have a poverty rate of between 33 per cent and 76 per cent.

We are off track on our Sustainable Development Goals, so much so that figures indicate that 29 per cent of children living in rural areas have stunted growth from malnourishment.

Things are not rosy even in Nairobi, which is the most food insecure county in the country. Available statistics indicate that 20 per cent of children living in cities suffer from malnutrition. This means 1 in 4 children in Nairobi is malnourished. Up to 11 per cent of children in the country are underweight and at the risk of starvation.

These facts are staggering. They remind us that we must address the plight of millions left behind in our 55-year journey as a republic; millions that whose plight will not be alleviated by our multi-billion infrastructure projects and trickle-down economics.

What are we, as a republic, doing for our downtrodden? Can we take time this Jamhuri Day and consider the plight of the poor, the weak and the hopeless?

Can our government stop sitting on its laurels and instead focus on intervention measures that work. Kenya cannot continue having abundant food and abundant hunger at the same time. We cannot have strategic food reserves yet some of our people are starving.

This holiday season, we must not go to the villages to flaunt our wealth. Instead, let us go there to seek out the poor and give them a bag of beans and some milk powder. As the song goes “carry your candle, run to the darkness, seek out the helpless.”

Maybe then will we have a Jamhuri Day we can all be proud of.

Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant [email protected]