Although Kenyan politicians are usually very keen to promote their 'visions' to the electorate, I have noticed that there is one item which is always missing from such 'vision statements'. And this applies as much for political parties as for individual leaders.
The missing item in these visions is 'full employment'. And not even the most reckless of Kenyan demagogues has ever dared to suggest that they will deliver on this if elected.
And yet this is the one thing that Kenyans desire more than anything else. Whereas in much of Europe young people can pick and choose, when it comes to what kind of work they are willing to do, we face a very different reality here.
First, Kenya is not a welfare state, and there is no safety net for the unemployed.
And then, higher education is not free. So very often the average graduate has parents who have made great sacrifices in order to support their studies.
You read of parents selling livestock, or even land, in order to pay the college fees owed by their son or daughter who is 'the hope of the family'. And then of university graduates who have ended up as security guards or matatu touts, for lack of any economic opportunity commensurate with their advanced studies.
Given these circumstances, I would say that what Kenyans want to know from their elected leaders – from the President to governors and senators, to MPs all the way down to MCAs – is simply, “How will you ensure that if we do our part and educate our children, you will, in turn, do your part and create employment opportunities for them?”
The answer, all across the board, is always the same: “We will provide low-interest loans so that young Kenyans can create their own jobs.”
This is despite the fact that there are several reports and studies pointing out that roughly 70 per cent of all new enterprises in the SME category, can be expected to collapse within two years of opening for business.
So it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t a single leader, in government or in opposition, who has a clear vision for the creation of massive employment opportunities for young Kenyans.
Now this is where I have to disappoint you if you had all along thought that I had some solution to this problem of youth unemployment, which I would present with a flourish before I reached the end of this column.
In my view, Op-Ed columns are not basically intended to provide real solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. The best they can do is to provoke discussion and debate, by providing a frame of reference for considering such problems.
My thoughts on this painful problem of youth unemployment are in fact the direct result of reading about the recent visit of the British monarch King Charles III – a visit that was a great success by any measure.
As an amateur historian, I reflected on the fact that King Charles's ancestor, Queen Victoria, who presided over 'the empire on which the sun never set', could hardly have imagined that the great colonising enterprise undertaken during her reign would one day be something which her heirs had to express their regret over.
But in this day and age, such expressions of regret (if not outright apologies) are unavoidable, given the many atrocities that necessarily come with taking over lands already belonging to various indigenous peoples, and handing such lands over to your own citizens who move over to 'settle' there.
It is all a reminder of the sheer audacity of the early 'freedom fighters' who dared to envision a day when indigenous Kenyans would govern themselves – a possibility that would have seemed delusionary to most people at the height of British colonial prestige.
This vision of an independent Kenya, promoted in the face of what must have seemed like the material impossibility that it would ever be actualised, should now serve as an example to the leaders of our time.
At whatever level they were elected last year, they should have the audacity to envision a Kenya in which we end up achieving what now seems to be an impossible dream: economic opportunity for all.
