KACHU SISUNGO: Kenyans, blind yourselves, and let the mono-eyed rule!

I draw a parallel from H.G Wells’ story “The Country of the Blind”; in which a mountaineer named Nuñez attempts to climb a fictitious mountain in Ecuador. He slips and falls down the far side of the mountain.

At the end of his descent, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by steep precipices. Unbeknown to Nuñez, he has discovered the fabled "Country of the Blind".

The valley had been a haven for settlers fleeing the tyranny of Spanish rulers, until an earthquake reshaped the surrounding mountains, cutting the valley off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years, despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all newborns blind.

He finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all bordered by kerbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, Nuñez begins reciting to himself the proverb, "In the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King".

He realises that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have no concept of sight, and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nuñez becomes angry, but the villagers calm him, and he reluctantly submits to their way of life, because returning to the outside world seems impossible.

Nuñez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob. He becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-Saroté. Nuñez and Medina-Saroté soon fall in love, and having won her confidence, Nuñez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her.

Medina-Saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nuñez asks for her hand in marriage, the village elders turn him down on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight".

The village doctor suggests that Nuñez's eyes be removed, claiming they are diseased and are "greatly distended" and because of this, "his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction."

Nuñez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-Saroté. However, at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nuñez, the failed King of the Blind, sets off for the mountains (without provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world, and escape the valley.

In early post-independence Kenya, the founding fathers dreamt of a prosperous country anchored in quality education and leadership. Academic qualifications and leadership were hand-in-hand and hence one’s ascendency to power and leadership was dependent of academic qualifications.

However, there came the disease of poverty and political bribery that has swept through the country with time. It has blinded the country on such and many other qualities to the extent that political leadership is now more dependable on the how economically endowed one can prove.

Kenya today faces a similar era in political leadership pursuits as espoused in H. G. Wells’ short story. It has become the land of the blind and those tasked with explaining sight to the leadership epitomises the situation Nuñez found himself in.

To start with, the framers of the 2010 Constitution burnt their mid night oil to give the country a constitution that was to, among others things, ensure the attainment of leadership with integrity and accountability.

Through the entrenchment of Chapters Six and other provision for elections to various offices, the drafters aimed at explaining leadership with sight to the country with hope that Kenyans would aspire to purse the path of visionary leadership.

The Elections Act (2011), for instance, provides for, among other things, the conduct of polls and provides for the conduct of a referendum.

The disregard of the this act by those blinded by power has put the future of the Constitution Amendment Bill 2020 conceived through the BBI process in limbo. Just recently, quoting the provisions of the same Act in articles 22-24, IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati reminded the country of the qualifications for persons to vie for various seats as entrenched in the act and the political class went into frenzy!

Politicians quickly united to suggest and push for the lowering and hence blinding of the qualifications in the act for them to fit the rule of the mono-eyed.

On the other hand, the discourse of the qualifications for the election of leaders has attracted very little (if any) input from the world of academia.

As the mono-eyed(s) push a narrative of lack of correlation between academic qualifications and leadership, the world of academia has been blinded by their aloof academic qualifications hence limiting their discussions on the issue amongst themselves: None is attempting to push for a correlation of academic prowess and leadership to the whole country.

An examination of the role of the church in leadership in Kenya also paints a grim picture. Blinded by the need to shepherd each other to achieve the much-desired kingdom of heaven, the church has to a greater extent stayed away from meaningful discourses that lead to the attainment of desired political leadership. They have more often than not adopted a pragmatic approach instead of being on the forefront of pushing for objective qualities of leaders.

On their part, the youth, women and Kenyans in diaspora have also been drawn into tribal cocoons, coalescing around “one of their owns” to ascend to political leadership. By so doing, they expect to rip big once one of their own ascends to power just as the people of Central Kenya and the Rift Valley are enjoying their Kumira Kumira ideology from 2013 that catapulted and perpetuated one of their owns into power.

At the end of all these, as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them.

All Kenyans aspiring to become leaders in our country will be required just like Nuñez who desired to marry Medina-Saroté, to reluctantly pluck off their eyes in terms of getting blind to the academic qualifications as prescribed by the political doctors to be a leader in the land of the blind.

Kachu wa Sisungo is a  social commentator