Dear Senior Counsel Paul Muite,
I was very privileged to walk with you to the main venue of the Safina Party’s National Delegates Convention. It was very symbolic to me.
You are a man that I looked up to when I was growing up. You, together with your fellow young Turks like my mentor Anyang’ Nyong’o, Martha Karua, Gitobu Imanyara, and Mukhisa Kituyi, truly inspired me to stand up for what is right and true.
I am genuinely humbled to continue from where you have left! Indeed, I consider your struggles well shouldered in the new left leaning politics of our times.
That walk was truly symbolic, prophetic and history in the making. From the clamor for a better Kenya that culminated in a new constitution in 2010. A constitution that made it possible to have the marginalised occupy their positions in Parliament. Yet, your party had preceded this by nominating to Parliament, your then secretary general Richard Leakey, a wheelchair user and a Kenyan of European descent.
When he was appointed head of the Public Service as leader of the ‘dream team’, you replaced him with yet another brilliant advocate, Josephine Odira Sinyo, the first blind woman to be an MP in the history of Kenya. Today, the representation of the marginalised is now properly entrenched in the Constitution that you fought for and paid a very heavy price for.
It’s through this Constitution that I have had the privilege of being the first MP and Senator with albinism a ‘Muthungu wa Ruiru’ in our republic. Thank you for making Kenyans believe that we, too, count, and have something to contribute towards Kenya’s democratization towards a prosperous future.
Itwika (new chapter)
May many people, young and old, be ready to pay the price of liberty, which is eternal vigilance.
That they will come out of their comfort zones, indeed their middling professions and pursuits to stand up for what is right and just, as this is what the Almighty God calls upon us to do — to exercise justice and righteousness as it is divine to do.
In fact, it’s the Holy Bible that says that ‘when the righteous rule, the people rejoice’, but when a wicked man rules, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2).
Kenya is a great country that deserves better. The fight for freedom against colonial rule was won through sweat and blood. The Second Liberation against single party dictatorship was won through detentions, crackdowns and demonstration, including exiles, culminating into a new constitution. The people won!
Itwika!
The third liberation is the economic emancipation. The struggle of our generation that each one of us, out of relative obscurity, must define it and stand to be counted.
The entitlement of a select few, that only they and their families can rule this country owing to the privilege of service by their fathers, is totally unacceptable!
Kenya was formed on the basis of equal opportunity between the white and black person.
This struggle morphed in to tribal competition for the Presidency. Now, we are at a crossroad, where those who ruled before us want to make this highest seat in the land a privilege of a select few families. It cannot be that this country can only be ruled by the Kenyattas, the Odingas, the Mois, and those who feel that because their fathers or families were, others cannot be.
This is the real threat to our democracy that leads to not only state capture, but also the relegation of millions of people into poverty, depravity and servitude. I believe all human beings were created equal, and time and chance are given to them all.
We want to tell them categorically that no single individual has the right to determine who is going to be the next Kenya’s president. That each and every one of us, if he or she so desires, can rise to this office if he is gifted enough to superintendent over the affairs of fellow Kenyans, despite his/her ethnic, family, religious, gender, age, disability, colour, marital or any other status.
This right to equal opportunity is what has inspired other great democracies the world over and we must as a matter of duty fight to defend and preserve it, for it is not only noble, but sacrosanct to do so.
Itwika!
Dear Paul Muite and all those other compatriots. Rest assured that we will take on, we will carry on with the struggle for a better, united, prosperous Kenya.
Standing tall on the shoulders of giants like you, we can now see more clearly far into the horizon: For Kenya’s position economically, cannot be defined by the sheer population numbers, but by the hard work, adaptability, dexterity, resilience of its people: Towards greater total productivity, competitiveness and markets. Standing tall amidst the community and comity of nations.
The fusion of the monopoly of government and that of the opposition cannot deter us from the third liberation — the economic emancipation.
Together we can. We can do it together for the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack!!
I thank you.
God bless Kenya.
Itwika!
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