Following last Sunday’s launch of Peter Kenneth’s
presidential bid I have watched with amazement and fascination the ‘massive’ following
of his Tunawesmake slogan and have decided to go further and check what it
really entails. My little understanding of Kenyan politics is that this does
not necessarily translate to political following but something that has come up
just at the opportune time with Obama’s predicted win which happened this
morning. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume at this stage he(Peter)
is catching our attention. I start by asking who is Peter Kenneth? A Kenyan
with a British father, a sitting Member of Parliament and ranked the best
Community Development Fund(CDF) manager or should I say led the best run CDF in
the country for how many years in a row? Either way he has his name tagged to
some sort of excellence which gives him justified confidence to run for any
post I would presume but this time the presidency.
I know in some quarters he has been
presented as the ‘Obama’, the much needed saviour of our beloved nation which
we all desperately yearn for. Talk to any black man anywhere about Obama-a son
to an immigrant black-Kenyan father- and all over sudden you will hear how
highly esteemed he is, in many cases he is not expected to do anything for them
but the fact that he has excelled in a white dominated society and overcame all
odds and not limited to racial-discrimination to ascend to the highest office
on the planet makes him an all-time hero to them. We all know how hard that is
and ask me and I will tell you for I have got my own experience. To try and run
these two gentlemen’s stories parallel to each other is delusional and uncalled
for but that is not my focus here. I have a strong feeling that Peter has no
any ambitions whatsoever of being the 4th president of the Banana
Republic; if it turns out he has, then it would be a laughable idea indeed.
Here is my argument, whoever told him that
his long or should we say short stint in the running of Kenyan Football
Federation(KFF) and wonderful running of Gatanga Community Development
Fund(CDF) amount to getting a ticket to ‘the house on the hill’ is an outright
liar.
I personally admire Kenneth for the great
work he has done to his constituency, roads are well done and routinely
maintained in a country where many roads have been like cattle tracks for lack
of a better term for a long time. The thought in many people’s minds though,
that because he has managed to utilise CDF- in a country ranked -----most
corrupt in the world- should qualify him for presidency is very worrying for
me. For one, I consider that as trivialising the magnitude Kenya problem
as Gatanga and her people have not much to share with the majority o the rest
of the Kenyans. A constituency of -----people compared to a population of about
40million people to me that ratio is inconsequential. It seems roads are the
key indicator to his successful legacy as the MP and with all due respect he
deserves the accolades but as many Kenyans think these roads are not a
privilege to any one Thika Road
Superhighway which connects Cape Town and Cairo included, they are
our rights! I wonder whether roads will be his sole-focus for his 4years term?
Roads might have been one of the most needed things for the constituents in
their deliveries to and out of the capital but that would not be the same in
Moyale, Samburu or Marsabit as food security and health would be rank higher on
their list of priorities. Someone might then argue that he knows his people’s
need but I would still not be convinced to put my money on him.
Whoever is advising him that using KFF as
his success story is doing him a great disservice. My personal advice would be
please forget about it and move on. There is nothing to be proud about the
institution. He might feature as one of the ‘good’ fellows to have headed the
group but that’s not worth mentioning in any public forum. To many, the mention
of the group leaves a bad taste in the mouth. How many factions do we have in
KFF today? Please don’t mention them. For me it would have been a success story
if he left the group with a strong sense of accountability, better governing
systems and laws-that would be success worth mentioning then but now my
understanding would be that Kenya would almost be a factional state
post-president Kenneth and you can take that to the bank.
What
am I saying? The reasons and the means being used by himself and his proponents
to drum-up support for him are wrong headed. My argument is that Kenneth should start seeing himself
as president of 40million people and not just the ‘Townies’, the elite and well
educated president who are to my understanding the one that understand even his
slogans of ‘TUNAWESMAKE’ an Obama’s Kenya coined slogan of ‘We can make it’. He
needs to convince my folks in the countryside why they need him….ooops…. am
forgetting our politics is not about agendas and issues but about tribes and
affiliations….What should I do here then? Peter Kenneth seems to be headed to
the right way, in which politics should
be done in Africa which should be about character and
accountability but to me he is not good enough yet! What Africa needs is
revolutionary leaders, people who are not worried to use unconventional methods
and routes to take us to our always yearning Canaan
land. Show me a country in Africa which does
not require a revolution and I will show you 50+ states where it has
always been yearned for. Where are the revered Mandela statesmen of our time? I
am sure they are somewhere! Come out! The last we want is selfish leaders. The
cry around the continent is the same, whether in Ibo Nigeria, Ruwenzori in Uganda or Bulawayo
in Zimbabwe
we want freedom, which will not be brought by stooges of the East or darlings
of the West. Whether this can be achieved is another thing all together. Those
who have attempted to seek their sovereignty and independence in Africa as it
is in the rest of the world have turned
themselves to dictatorship and their countries have turned to anarchy while
others have been branded as persons of non-grata or worse still ‘arch-enemy to humanity’. Listening to the
just concluded US presidential debates there was no single mention of Africa-a
crucial part of humanity - by a country that prides itself in freedom and human
justice should worry us because to my interpretation we’re are alone in the
wilderness and unless we engineer our way out we are going to remain in the
quagmire for a very long period of time and this takes me back to my point we
need strong credible men and women to lead us in all spheres of our lives!
You would be forgiven for asking why then
am I not commenting on some of the other presidential candidates who have
already been fronted---my simple answer would be---not worth my attention at
all!!
