Cord leaders, the Chief Justice have have called for a national dialogue intimating that only a national conference may resolve our seemingly intractable problems.
For national dialogue to succeed, it must have open agendas, whose purpose must not be to help anyone acquire power or entrench anyone in power but serve the best interests of the nation.
Since the main purpose of national dialogue is to solve our most difficult problems, agendas of the conference would reflect those problems that are suffered by all sectors, classes, genders and communities of our society.
However, national dialogue would do best to discuss those issues that are central to problems but are least talked about.
To be accepted by those in power however, a national dialogue must not be conducted with an ulterior motive of supplanting current government with another but rather to chart a way forward that would help those in power to govern better and those in opposition to criticize better.
The following are the problems that National Dialogue should focus on.
1. Bad leadership. Problems of most nations stem from bad leadership that must be substituted with better leadership to solve problems. If people ignore the problem of bad leadership their other problems inevitably get worse while bad leaders worsen into dictators who treat people as their slaves.
2. Negative ethnicity. Right following the problem of bad leadership, problems are made worse by negative ethnicity which makes it impossible for the country to resolve the problem of bad leadership by convincing society that good leaders can only come from certain communities and leaders from other communities can never be fit to govern the country.
3. Jungle society. Once a country is in the grip of bad leadership and negative ethnicity, it develops a jungle society whose life is a hell on earth where the strong exploit the weak, the rich fatten on the poor and desperation takes the place of hope.
4. Un-patriotism. United States Declaration of Independence says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness which includes justice and right to opportunity for every person to become what they want to be. Like Americans, Kenyans must live by a set of national values that should be the foundation of our patriotism which should illuminate the path of our lives.
5. Inhuman capitalism. At independence, Kenyan leaders decided to build not a society where men and women work for each other and are their brothers’ and sisters’ keeper but a hell where man will eat man. In its very nature, capitalism breeds wealth for a few and poverty for the majority. When Kenyans therefore talk about eradicating poverty but refuse to abandon capitalism that causes it, it means they have no intention of eradicating poverty. The rich can never be expected to eradicate poverty because what exploitation takes from the poor is the gain that makes the rich wealthy. Kenyans cannot therefore continue to pretend that it does not matter whether their system is capitalism or socialism. When people choose capitalism, they choose poverty for the majority and wealth for the few, and when they choose socialism they chose good life for all.
6. Corruption. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, when people choose jungle society, they legitimize graft, when they embrace negative ethnicity, communities become defenders of own corruption and when society adopts capitalism as a means of survival, it also embraces corruption as a tool of living better than others. Because we have refused to seriously tackle corruption, graft has spread to government, courts, parliament, businesses, education, transport and even churches.
7. Lack of industrialization. It is now obvious to everybody that without science, technology and industrialization, no nation can develop or acquire full employment of its youth. Everything must therefore be done to industrialize or sadly say goodbye to the First World.
To solve the seven problems above, we must upgrade them above the traditional three of ‘poverty, disease and ignorance.’ Solution of these problems must also be placed at the centre of a properly formulated National Vision whose aim must be to take Kenya to the First World.