• Corruption has hit its nadir and confusion reigns supreme. Counties are almost shutting down due to a stifled revenue flow from the national government.
• And this is after a rather protracted and acrimonious debate in the Senate over the revenue allocation formula to the devolved units.
Fellow Kenyans, we are deep into a hole, yet we keep digging deeper. We must stop digging now!
Picture this good people. The Executive is at war with itself. The president is set apart from his deputy and Cabinet secretaries owe their allegiance to either of them separately.
The Judiciary is at loggerheads with parliament, the Executive ditto.
Corruption has hit its nadir and confusion reigns supreme. Counties are almost shutting down due to a stifled revenue flow from the national government. And this is after a rather protracted and acrimonious debate in the Senate over the revenue allocation formula to the devolved units.
But most worrying is the cacophony and pandemonium being witnessed in the political arena with organised violence fast creeping back, as warmongers beat war drums in the country.
That the economy is in the doldrums is no secret, and things can only get worse due to devastating effects of Covid-19. Where then is the problem?
Obviously, our Achilles heel is a rudderless, even clueless leadership that appears unable to provide proper national anchorage in times of crisis such as we find ourselves in today. Perhaps in expressing his frustration at the sad situation in his country then, former US President Barack Obama could as well have had us in mind when he wrote in The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, “What’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics. The ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem.”
The Jubilee Party has effectively cast their manifesto into the dustbin as it no longer understands nor appreciates Vision 2030 or the Big Four agenda as formal roadmaps to making our lives better.
Instead they are heads-deep into transient trivia and mediocrity that they have variously dubbed Kieleweke, Tangatanga or ‘Hustler Nation’.
For starters, the ‘Hustler Nation’ narrative must be seen for what it is — a clever but devious trickery emanating from the Jubilee corner that feels outwitted and frustrated in their determination to form the next government.
After seven years at the apex of our power pyramid, why do the ‘Hustler Nation’ brigade all of a sudden find the urgent need to connect with the downtrodden, the God-forsaken mwananchi to rescue them from the ‘dynasties’?
Have we not seen these cabal of political bandits happily share the national dining table and literally grab the national cake to our exclusion? Has their road-to- Damascus moment come too soon?
Of course not, its only politically expedient for them to scream and sell poisonous lies to the destitute electorate now. In a nut shell, Vision 2030 sought to propel us to a middle level economy. The hustlers have not put up such a spirited campaign in its support.
The Big Four agenda seeks to among other things enhance food security, improve industrialisation and create jobs, enhance healthcare and also improve our housing situation. Why doesn’t the hustler brigade support these interventions, if it truly cares for the poor man and woman at the grassroots?
Doesn’t this obviously sound more sustainable than distributing and riding on wheelbarrows for the cameras? Definitely, it would be more prudent for the proponents of the hollow hustler narrative to retreat to Parliament and Executive committees to legislate and formulate policies that would see to the gradual but sustainable liberation and emancipation of the marginalised.
But as Niccolo Machiaveli observes in The Prince, “Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”