MY TWo CEnts PLus CHange: CAlling ON ALl DOnkeys

In October 2007, I wrote and published (both on my blog and two local dailies) an article on why Kenya was better of going for a donkey in that year’s general elections REad IT HEre. That was after the ODM party leader had coined the two horse race phrase. We all remember vividly what happened after we decided that the race was between two horses and a mule.

We went the horse way and we’ve been treated to five years of continuous nonstop racing.

We may not have had a definitive donkey candidate that year. It is however different this time round for we have a few candidates who have proved themselves to be true leaders at heart. We still doubt the capability of these leaders to be the executives of this country despite their proven track records in their current and former places of leadership. We still think they are not well exposed politically. We claim they do not have the blessings of their tribal elders. Ooh they are too green for the presidency, ooh they are not radical enough… and any other excuse we find necessary to cloud a sober judgement of character.

In the Epilogue of Caesar and Christ REad IT HEre, Will Durant tells how Rome as a civilization self destructed from within even before being conquered. "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars." Let us not give the international community a reason to meddle in our affairs because we cannot get our house in order.

Why can’t we act when we still have the democratic tools to determine our destiny? Why must we wait until sanctions, trade embargoes, international community interventions and isolation come our way for us to learn our lesson?

When Mugabe made Zimbabwe a one man show and the country got isolated, who suffered the most? when inflation rose to over 500% overnight and citizens became sterile billionaires, did sovereignty come to their aid? Surely Mugabe, his immediate family and cronies could not have died from being banned from travelling to the EU member countries but when it required a cart load of ZIM$ to buy a loaf of bread, the writing was on the wall for the ordinary Zimbabwean.

At the end of the day, sovereignty will not place ugali at your table. When Kamlesh Pattni hatched a scheme that created a conveyer belt from the Central Bank of Kenya to his personal bank accounts in 1991 our government then was hawking sovereignty to anyone who cared to listen. The country was in dire need of foreign exchange earnings but international doors had been closed on us. Our blind call of sovereignty gave birth to Goldenberg and if you are currently a youth, it will take you, your children and your children’s children before the country starts recovering from the Kamlesh damage.

We are sovereign when western countries dictate to us about good governance and democracy but leave our sovereignty behind when we go to them to beg for foreign aid and grants.

We are sovereign when international laws dictate that human rights must be upheld at the highest standard but forget the same sovereignty when we ask the international community to help with relief aid after we've thrown our country to the dogs. Sovereignty is such a prized commodity to be entrusted solely in the hands of politicians.We must guard it by being responsible citizens. We must make that spirited effort towards true sovereignty that is guaranteed by the ability to fund our own national budget, ability to feed every citizen within our borders and our zeal to elect our leaders peacefully and intelligently.

The community of nations will always come in when one member state goes against simple principles of governance. More so in Africa where our democracies despite decades of existence still need breastfeeding and babysitting. Kenya has come a long way and God has had our back over and over again when we as a nation have made mistakes that have threatened to destroy us in a blink of an eye. We survived a bloody coup in 1982 miraculously, we made it through the economic meltdown of the late 80s and 90s, We brought a stop to the madness that followed the botched up elections of 2007 (and there are families yet to recover from this ordeal). We’ve touched the bottom of abyss several times but sprang back and recovered by the sheer grace of God and the determination of our collective action in the face of crisis.

For how long then do we continue to gamble with our destiny?

For how long shall we continue entrusting the steering wheel of this nation to rogue drivers only to spend another 5 years in the back seats praying and fasting that they don’t land us in a ditch?

If for a minute we can allow reason to prevail and answer some tough questions to ourselves, then the following characters would be brought to light:

a) Politicians who are where they are not because of their leadership skills but because they happen to have certain names and certain business interests to safeguard

b) Politicians whose only interest in power are the titles and protocols that come with the titles

c) Politicians who mutate with the times depending on whether they are in government or opposition

Democracy if well executed offers the best chance for a people to make political decisions. Remember in the words of James Freeman, "A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation." If I may add, a rogue voter thinks of the current election; an intelligent voter thinks of the next generation.