BY GEORGE NYONGESA:-Kenya: Leadership recycling an impediment to development

by Bunge La Mwananchi It is close to 50 years since the British left us to determine our socio-economic and political progress. At the time of independence our country, development wise, we ranked the same as the Asian tigers such as Singapore and Malaysia. Today the Asian tigers are 100 years ahead of us in development. What happened to Kenya? There are many reasons one could give, but one is clearly a major one, and that is leadership. In matter of societal progress, natural endowment of resources such as gold, oil, copper, good soil, rivers etc cannot be a substitute to having an effective leadership. Our past and present leadership is characterized by individuals who were socialized in colonialism. Colonialism main thrust was domination for self-good. The colonialist first dominated the Africans politically and used that political domination to influence our economics and social affairs. Once they dismantle the Africans way of socio-political organization they had us captive. They embarked on the mission to exploit and repatriate the loot. Forget those stupid arguments that the Whites colonized Africa so as to civilize or to trade with African. There sole mission was to exploit human and natural resources enrich themselves and their mother country. Moving on, don’t our leaders exhibit similar characteristics? Isn’t there mission for leadership closely related to the colonization mission? First, like colonialists these leaders have an ego that they are best of us and they are the ones who know what is good for all of us. Do you read a similarity to the white’s racist thinking? Our leaders seek office to acquire riches; first themselves and then their friends, and all these take place at the expense of the dominated. During colonial time, the dominated was an African. The African were dominated and forced to work in the plantations of coffee, tea, sisal, pyrethrum etc for small pay so that they can pay tax to the colonial government. The Africans who were forced to grow coffee and tea they did not need were not even given a chance to decide what price to sell to the white man. Let us relate this to today. The characters that took over leadership from the British today continue the same economic policies of exploitation. They are the middlemen selling coffee and tea abroad and exploitative price. The coffee and tea workers continue to pay tax from their meager earnings from the coffee farm. During elections they come together and divide us into different tribes and assign themselves who will be the governor of which region. Isn’t that what happened during Berlin conference when the Europeans decided that instead of coming to wrestle each other and display there barbaric and savage behavior before a black man they Africa quietly and then collaborate in exploitation of African resources as long as no one crosses the border of the other. Same thing happens with our leadership just think about… Now all these things are obvious but what we must ask why is it continuing unmitigated? How can we stop it? To start with we must realize the irreplaceable role leadership plays in the development of any society. It is the leaders who manage the human and natural resource for the good of all. When you have people who think they are God’s gift to the people, they are best and they must lead you then you have a problem. When you have leadership that divides into ethnic groups so as to rule you then you have a problem right there. When you have selfish people who are seeking to enrich themselves presiding over distribution of resources then there is a problem. When you have leaders whose worldview was socialized in the mentality of exploiting the masses then there is a problem. When you have people who are in their diminishing return years making decisions that they won’t live to see their impact then you have a problem. Do you think that Jimmy Kibaki or Fidel Odinga takes the advice their fathers Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga without questioning it? If there sons think that these men are old, just the same way you look at your father; to make sound decisions for the family why should we allow these type of to make national decision that affects 40 million Kenyans? The current leadership has individuals who grew up in the tutelage of either Kenyatta or Moi. We all agree that our problems started with kenyatta leadership. It was worsened by Moi leadership. Doesn’t that just mean that all these people laying claim on 2012 presidency are full of primitive leadership of Kenyatta and Moi? If they did not advice Kenyatta or Moi on better society organizing when they were cabinet ministers what has happened to them to be good leaders today? This is a different generation and the world is revolving faster. The word today is operating on technology and most of these cannot even send an text message. Not long from today UN Assembly will be done through teleconference and these characters know nothing about technology how will they survive? Only fools and madmen keep doing the same thing and expect different results. We have first hand lessons that the current crop of leaders is all bogus without a vision or ideology for organizing Kenya to realize it is potential. We need a leadership that has a well thought ideology to organize us politically so as to realize our economic and social dreams. Let me emphasis that we must get it right politically for us to realize our economics and then followed by social tidings. Ideology is the framework for organizing the society and that is what we don’t have. The ideology we require is one that will give each person opportunity to play their rightful role in developing Kenya. That ideology must ensure that all of us get returns from our input and no one puts in less and gets more or everything. Therefore, why can’t we as Kenyans think seriously and decide not to recycle leaders especially those we know they cannot perform? (unedited text). George Nyongesa +254 720 451 235