- Kenyans are tired of politics of self seekers, who are driven by greed, malice and hatred. Just listen to them as they shout and yell their hearts out in the name of "democracy "and "people of kenya". You may be tempted to think they reside on the moon if it wasn't for the fact that they dwell in kenya.
On the contrary, Kenyan are well educated and very tolerant politically. This may look like a weakness to some but it is a real strength. As we forge ahead with our political dispensation it always wise to beware these self seekers whose goal and objective is nothing else but themselves.
Here are some of the simple but practical things Kenyans want from their Government.
1. Better transport network
2. Electricity in every village
3. Good schools; primary, secondary, middle colleges and universities.
4. Clean and safe drinking water in every village
5. Farmers to get what is their dues when they deliver their produce.
6. Security for every Kenyan
7. Decentrallized government so that people can get services without delay.
8. Freedom to own property anywhere in the country without being harrased.
9. Corruption free country where honesty and hard work is our clarion.
10. Leaders who are equal to the 21Century challenges.
Hon Koigi Wamwere has a very serious point. Seee below
on the same note see what others say..............
"Where is the party of the people?
By Koigi Wamwere
Kenyans are some of the people who fought hardest for multi-party democracy against one-party dictatorship. Unbelievably, they are today saddled with the most rudderless, ethnic and divisive parties that make multiparty democracy more of a liability.
Why do Kenyans suffer the worst economy and politics? Are we cursed or don’t think hard enough about our problems and their solutions? Are we mentally half-baked?
I suggest we suffer as we do because we lack a true party of the people. But what people? They are the poor Kenyans who are the majority in all communities.
The party of the people is the party of all Kenyans that will speak for the poor without embarrassment.
Men and women are not born to suffer. They are born to enjoy life. Our mission in life therefore is to always improve our lives by fighting hunger, disease, homelessness and oppression.
Man is, however, born weak. Alone he cannot solve his problems. To solve problems, he must unite with others in parties that subsequently form governments.
Governments’ core function is therefore to solve people’s problems.
Unfortunately people are not monolithic, they pursue their interests and solve their problems as groups rather than individually. These groups then organise parties and governments to solve their problems.
When the rich form parties and governments, it is to make them richer with all manner of means. If ever the poor form parties and governments, it is to solve their pressing problems. When tribal leaders form parties and governments it is to establish ethnic apartheid with which they exploit and oppress their own people and those of other communities. And of course when Presidents and MPs form parties and governments, even in the name of the people, it is to perpetuate themselves in power and greater wealth.
How do people tell what kind of party and government they have? By looking at the history of its leaders, what they say and don’t say, how they live and what they do and don’t do. All cannot be wrong. For instance, an unrepentant dictator remains so even if he calls himself a democrat. A propagator of ethnic hate is a tribalist even if he proclaims himself a nationalist. Parties and governments of the rich avoid talking for the poor as they do leprosy. Parties and governments of the corrupt may condemn corruption but never ostracise or jail thieves or confiscate their loot.
The poor are the most disorganised group. They have neither vision nor a way of solving their own problems. They don’t even address their own problems. They take those of their ethnic leaders as their own.
Instead of organising themselves, they are content to follow the rich and live on the crumbs that fall from their tables. Others are even happier as foot soldiers and cannon fodder for ethnic wars. We laugh at Somalia but we are no better.
Fortunately for our rich and ethnic warlords, Kenyans don’t like ideal things. They prefer hell to heaven. Or is it that they don’t know how to get out of hell or they don’t know it is at all possible to get out of it?
We should get a party that will comprehensively address the following problems.
The first is tribalism that puts us all at war with one another and may burn our common home in a conflagration that will consume us all.
The second is poverty that is the poor man’s burden. As Europe has learnt from her revolutions, as long as the poor man is hungry, he will always remain angry and explosive. Poverty is not just immoral. It is the millstone that always drowns the economy and the common man.
The third is dictatorship, a hydra whose main head we may have cut but whose smaller heads are itching to take us back to the days of queue voting, politics of the big man and treason and denies registration to perfectly legitimate parties.
The fourth is the religion of corruption that has made money our god whom both the rich and the poor worship.
The fifth is the generational rot that we can only cure with "Ituika," that African traditional democracy that helped us replace old minds that want to die in power with persons who are not just physically strong but also ideologically progressive. Backward, greedy and reactionary youth will take us nowhere anti-change, corrupt and senile octogenarians have not taken us.
What our economy and governance need is not just the raw energy of youth but synergy of knowledge, experience and progressive ideas of both old and young.
Parties that don’t walk the talk have no business calling themselves parties of the people. They cannot form government of, by and for the people.
* Koigi wa Wamwere is the Assistant minister for Information and Communication. "
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