Only in Africa will thieves be grouping to loot again and the youths whose future is being stolen will be celebrating it
Next year’s general election should be a turning point. Kenyans need to reclaim responsibility to elect leaders based on character and political agenda that resonates with issues that affect their lives and livelihood.
Kenyans are not truly in charge of general elections through representative democracy. Political elites are. They form and sponsor political parties; they automatically become party leaders and presidential candidates without going through democratic processes. They take charge of parties’ nominations; dictate who to elect and craft election narratives, agenda and messages without involving voters.
Consequently, the elected leaders and the government they form do not deliver political goods and services that truly reflect the lives Kenyans need. Nobel prize winner Prof Akinwande Soyinka tells us that: “Only in Africa will thieves be grouping to loot again and the youths whose future is being stolen will be celebrating it.”
Leadership is character. Virtuous leadership would illumine the minds and hearts of Kenyans and lift their spirit to believe in hard work, build confidence in themselves and trust the government and leaders they have elected. Virtuous leadership includes integrity, prudence, courage, self-control, justice, magnanimity and humility.
In the next general election, Kenyan voters should vote wisely to elect virtuous leaders with moral visions that strive for the common good to form a responsible government
Corazon Aquino, who took over leadership of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, is a virtuous leader who inspired growth of representative democracy. She served with sincerity, simplicity and integrity for one six-year term and chose not to seek reelection.
She stated: “I assumed the powers of the dictatorship, but only long enough to abolish it. I had absolute power, yet ruled with constrain. I created independent courts to question my absolute powers, and finally a legislature to take it from me.”
She never accepted the idea of democracy for democracy’s sake. “Without the right values in the people, a democracy is only a confederacy of fools,” she said. Long after Cory Aquino ceased to be president, Filipinos still look up to her as a leader who united the nation.
Campaign agenda setting in any general election is key. It should not be left to politicians alone. The people must be involved. In Kenya, agenda setting is understood to be the prerogative of the presidential candidates.
The political elites appear to hold notion that Kenyans, nicknamed Wanjiku by President Moi, have no idea about politics, constitutional reform, or even how to vote wisely without being guided, threatened, rewarded or bribed.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Jose Marti states that: “The first duty of man is to think for himself”. Politics should truly reflect the lives of Kenyans, and truly represent and serve Kenyans. It should give them hope that the government they elect on August 9, 2022, shall truly address real issues affecting their lives and the way they should live in unity as nation-state.
The real issues Kenyans are facing, in my view, include lack of virtuous leadership and constitutionalism, grand corruption, unsustainable debt, unemployment, lack of dignity of work, hunger and food insecurity, personal and territorial insecurity, slow economic development, uneven wealth distribution, inequality, exclusive campaign agenda setting and above all, a bandit economy.
Unless grand corruption is controlled, all economic models, resource distribution approaches and social welfare programmes are a waste of time.
Consultant in finance, governance and devolution
