ARE THESE POLITICIANS VICTIMS OF RABID GRANDIOSE DELUSIONS?

“When the law is on your side, pound the law. When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. And when neither is on your side, pound the table” so goes a dictum. It is this dictum that made me recall an incident in parliament last week when one legislator chided another legislator for banging the table when demanding for the creation of additional regions and counties. Such was the acrimony that characterized parliament’s sessions last week. This acrimony is natural given the fact that the quest for fair political representation has been with us for quite some time. With rapid population growth and with no clear criteria for the creation of legislative boundaries; rabid grandiose delusions are likely to manifest in some ambitious politicians as we approach 2012. Parliaments acrimony aside, we must as a nation be cognizant of the fact that fair representation demands for a formula that best serves the country’s national democratic aspirations while balancing the peculiarities of the country. The peculiarities to be considered include ethnic diversity, geographical size, level of economic development and civic awareness. Ignoring these peculiarities is a sure recipe for protracted conflicting ideologies that could easily engender secessionist sentiments. I am convinced that with sobriety we can agree on a formula that will best address fair representation without appearing to trample upon the rights of other ethnic groups. We have enough academic gurus who can get us out of this impasse. (Unless of course, to paraphrase Plato’s words, these academic gurus are too smart to engage in politics and do not therefore care whether they are punished by being governed by those who are dumber). We must begin to appreciate the fact that Kenya is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, and one cloth. It is only in the conscious harnessing of unity in diversity that we can all be proud of our nationhood. In this regard, we must not allow regional king pins from pursuing their delusions at the expense of our nationhood. In the public limelight such politicians will pass for our average nationalists but in the comforts of their ethnic enclaves they are shockingly different. They have shown that they are more than willing to resort to ethnic driven merry- go- rounds with a view to mutilating the draft constitution to self perpetuate their selfish political interests by riding high on our ignorance. They will therefore do anything at their disposal to ensure that we are far removed from the reality by insisting that we continue putting on our ethnic blinkers. In so doing, we will have helped them to realize their own selfish interests. Lest we forget, in the words of Paul Valery, “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” We the people must wipe off from our faces, those foolish ethnic grins. We must not dance ourselves lame when these leaders invoke the hydra of negative ethnicity only for us to cry later. In any case, it is doubtable that such leaders want to use this ethnic platform to advance the interest of “their people”. It can only be that they want to ride on the back of negative ethnicity to access raw power so that they can advance their own selfish interests. TOME FRANCIS. BUMULA. http://twitter.com/tomefrancis