Once again, the biggest narrative in town becomes the Kenya@50 celebrations and ironically, time and tide place the difficult task on the small shoulders of the Jubilee administration, made of men and women who were either born on the dawn of independence or after. But forget the pomp and panache of the expected bonanza.
Many questions still abound in importing memories of the age old refrain in Shakespeare’s opening phrase in the play Hamlet; To be or not to be. When I appeared for a programme on a local TV earlier this week, a caller armed with both guts and gaits asked: “Why can’t the government spend the approximate Sh500 million it will use to host the golden jubilee party in setting up a kitty to improve the lives of the struggling freedom fighters whose life mimic those of ‘chokoraa’ due to neglect by subsequent regimes that proceeded the colonialist? Better still, why not use the money to mine the precious aquifer recently discovered in Turkana with the potential of serving the entire country for the next 70 years?”
At this stage I chose to remain reticent dodging the question because there was no way I was going to answer the caller for the obvious reasons that in Africa, priorities seem to be on the receiving end, in fact, facing an existential threat. I may not blame the Jubilee government in its nascent days for this was a plan that even the Grand Coalition harboured as per the last pronouncements of the then Prime Minister Raila at a public function in Nyayo Stadium on the dusk of the coalition government then.
Simply, I see it as an oversight by our leadership living in a false island of comfort amidst an ocean of despondency, whilst the majority or even those who brought home independence, the giants whose shoulders we stand today are struggling to scratch the surface of survival. A story is told of how Mandela was so irked by stories on his way to Kenya in the 90s over the sorry state of Dedan Kimathi family that when he arrived here he had wanted to meet the family.
But, as usual, the then government leaders painted a rosy picture to hide the shameful neglect and abysmal life the late freedom fighter’s family lived. But why would a government fail to recognise its heroes. Why was the Ministry of Culture and Social Services not so assertive on pushing for a policy to reward and even materially honour these heroes; why do we disown them in life but grant them state burials complete with statues worth millions of shillings instead of appreciating them when alive? Is it a poverty of leadership, thought or just a poverty of character or is it fear of the unknown.
But then again, should we not celebrate how far we have come? The many freedoms and political rights we today enjoy thanks to the new Constitution. Well, it is in order. However, I have always been of the opinion that visionary leadership need not to put a human face on its deficits. Different challenges keep surfacing.
Unlike in 1963 when we faced off with the colonialists because we needed self-rule, the problems have morphed to the elusive search of freedom against poverty; insecurity; unemployment; profligacy and corruption and regression. It is sad that today, Turkana and many parts of northern Kenya still live under the chains of stone-age.
If I was to advise president Uhuru Kenyatta, I would counsel him to borrow from the notes of President Kagame who today has bragging rights for eliminating the grass-thatched houses in Rwanda, brought the one laptop per child project, has the cleanest towns where in some villages even wearing same cloth for two days attract government attention and Rwanda is the safest country in Africa. - By Onyango Ochieng
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