It is sad, annoying, and embarrassing that for fifty years and counting, Kenyans have been electing people to public offices who have not been able to build a prosperous nation. This is because of greediness, dire recklessness in managing State resources, and ineptness that knows no bounds.
A Region Power
Kenya has far more excellent prospects to develop economically leaps and bounds than most African Nations. This country stands at a fundamental locus of power in the entire region of East Africa, but this will be a short time. In the foreseeable future, other African Countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania will take the lead because our inability is their opportunity to become great.
Kenya has far more excellent prospects to develop economically leaps and bounds than most African Nations. This country stands at a fundamental locus of power in the entire region of East Africa, but this will be a short time. In the foreseeable future, other African Countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania will take the lead because our inability is their opportunity to become great.
Firstly, Kenyans are very hardworking. This could be the only reason this nation exists. Most people will agree that if you wake up in the morning and decide to run your business like our county governors, senators, and M.C.A.s combined, your business will run out of existence before lunch.
Their ineptness and harebrained politics result in resource misappropriation and thievery! This is because they do not care to work hard like the rest of Kenyans!
Secondly, Kenya is home to over forty tribes that mostly live and work together in peace. This somehow derails the possibility of an entire-blown civil war, which has been in the past the cause of unrest in many African countries like Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and so many other nations in the world. Some countries like Somalia, Congo, and Sudan are, unfortunately, in the gutter trying to eliminate each other!
Even in the most bitter days, which sometimes turned brutal and hopeless, Kenya has a way of coming back. Whether decisively or inadvertently, we fondly learn from the past, thus growing civically, politically, and emotionally.
We cannot take for granted the many years we have lived together in peace. This guarantees that Kenya is here to stay, unreservedly going far democratically, economically, and diversionary. So why aren't our leaders taking this significant peacetime to build a forever-strong Kenya that assists our region in more critical ways to restore their peace? Answer: ineptness, emptiness, and lack of vision!
African countries that have severe socioeconomic crises, like Somalia, Sudan, and Congo, suffer from precarious ethnic disintegration, which is the primary ingredient in the recipe for an endless violent war. We sure do not want Kenya to ever stoop into such desperate situations. Look at Congolese in Tanzania and Iraqi people at the borders of Europe, or drive North Eastern to Dadaab camp here in Kenya and see how citizens of other countries have suffered at the hands of violent civil wars!
This creates a situation where citizens cannot work to build their own nation's economy. Instead, they seek refuge in other nations, drastically enervating their country's ability to create wealth.
For the past fifty years, Kenya has never reached a situation in which citizens became refugees in other countries. Let's hope it stays that way.
Sure, we have had our wars, which, for example, created internal displacement of people; a situation in 2007/2008 post-election violence, which I can only guess that Kenyans are not willing to go back to any time soon.
So, What's Wrong with Kenya?
Leadership with shallow thinking and fear of thinking big. When you have people in government stealing from their governments, that's a nation gone rogue! Leadership is not a matter of guesswork or luck. Instead, it's a serious decision-making platform that requires transformation.
Politicians are responsible for decisions affecting fifty million people. We can't have guesswork, fraternity! Oh! That's what we have! Inability to create, develop, decide, progress, think broader, or even find a permanent solution for a slight problem like water and electricity!
Developed Nations.
African leaders need to borrow a leaf from developed nations. What do these countries do that we can't? What are they doing that we aren't doing, and why? But they dwell too much on what developed countries have that we don't; instead of what they do, to have what they have!
For example, developed countries have revere road infrastructure, and we don't. They have mega and profitable ports, both air and sea, and we don't. Ingenious industry and technology, and we forever suck at these. They have preeminence in education, and we don't. They have newfangled state-of-the-art military and equipment; we are not even close!
We focus on something other than their excellent leadership skills, methods, and science, which answers why they are so developed and why we are not. And Oh! They don't steal from their own governments! That is the only thing we do that they don't!
Wisdom Not Money
Building a great nation is not a question of money but determination, resolve, and wisdom. If you disagree, how much money did Mau Mau have to beat down the white man? They had a resolve, determination, a vision!
If you give Kenya $21 billion, they will loot and beg for more. If you give the same to a country like Japan or Germany, they will build something that will last for the next hundred years! While others thrive on wisdom and ingenuity, we dwell on corruption, ignorance, and pettiness. If they call us monkeys, we are enraged. But we have made it an African brand!
That's why we look like scarecrows when we visit their nations. We are so dumb, and it shows wherever we go! Our necks start bulging as we look at the skyscrapers in the heart of London and New York, the great expanse of beautiful dual carriage highways, and expensive cars that screech on state-of-the-art tarmac!
You should see us admiring what we can't have because we are busy STEALING from our governments! You should see how they look at us looking at them. We look like monkeys looking at a banana. Sorry, it's offensive, but haven't we continued to be viewed like so because Africa is determined to trademark the monkey brand? An insult is an insult if it is not valid! It ceases to be an insult once we prove otherwise!
The entire African continent has chosen to remain block-headed and blame their underdeveloped world on the fact that we were colonized! The racist past of the white men looted and exploited Africa and called us monkeys. That was an insult then because they had never given us freedom at the time. So, we beat them down until they left. They left so we can prove that we are not monkeys. But have we? I'll leave that at that!
To get off the list of dumb and damn, we should prove to our past colonizers, oppressors that. 'What Didn't Kill Us Made Us Stronger". We were broken but never broke! But have we proven this since independence?
What's Done Since Independence?
But what has Africa been doing for those thirty, fifty, or sixty years since independence? Is it not stealing and looting? Haven't we spent decades fighting and killing our own in endless civil wars? Haven't our leaders been creating unrest to cling to power? How is that better than being colonized? It is true that countries like the U.S. have had their brutal civil wars, BUT.THEY. MOVED.ON!
But what has Africa been doing for those thirty, fifty, or sixty years since independence? Is it not stealing and looting? Haven't we spent decades fighting and killing our own in endless civil wars? Haven't our leaders been creating unrest to cling to power? How is that better than being colonized? It is true that countries like the U.S. have had their brutal civil wars, BUT.THEY. MOVED.ON!
Colonization is a brainwashing excuse used by Africans against colonizers to keep begging for aid and then embezzle the same to enrich their greediness! This is the actual colonization. In the words of Denzel Washington in the movie The Great Debaters, "Keep the slave physically strong but psychologically weak and dependent on their enslaver. Keep the body, take the mind".
The problem with African leaders is that they don't think and don't want to because they know how tedious thinking is! Monkey Trademark?
Benchmark Policy
Benchmarking should be done with the best of the best. Kenya benchmarks with the United States, Britain, and some other European countries like Sweden, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Even Japan and South Korea are on our benchmarking list.
In 2017, around 85 government officials went to Nashville, Tennessee, for a leadership forum, spending over Kenya Shillings 430 million ($4.3 Million). Monkey trademark!
We also make numerous trips to Dubai's elite industries and decide to make an unnecessary stop in China to collect insurmountable and unmanageable loans that we so well mismanage and STEAL. Monkey Trademark!
Problem? "Keep the body, take the mind." Shallow thinking, inept leadership, zero progress, always begging. Now, that's the solid definition of Monkey Trademark! Even Jesus said you cannot put new wine in old bottles!
This means that great ideas in technology, industry, banking, manufacturing, infrastructure, education, and agriculture cannot be brought to a nation that thrives on delinquent old habits of corruption, impunity, and notorious embezzlement of public funds by people who have been in power since time immemorial!
None of these great ideas can work in a country with naive and unpolished leaders and blunt politicians who cannot solve unsophisticated problems in their own countries, such as hunger and simple security issues.
They want more county funds, but the millions they receive cannot be explained to the nearest dime! Unfortunately, they are teaching this to the young M.C.A.s and taking those lessons seriously! The new thieves' culture continues!
True Definition of Corruption
Corruption is a result of stupidity, shallowness, and thick-minded people. U.S. President Donald Trump allegedly stated that "... [Africans]...are foolish people who shamelessly steal from their government......" If you are keen on the insult, you missed that statement's glaring and embarrassing irony!
He also blatantly referred to Africa and probably some other poor nations in the world as "Shithole countries", an insult the world frowned upon but which in its core is pure truth!
When former President Obama was running for the presidency, Donald Trump asked, "Tell me one country that a black person runs, and that is also successful."
However racial and demeaning these statements are, especially coming from an individual holding such a professional and powerful office, they hold a truth that we African nations can rant all we can, but we know their blunt truth!
Disgusting Scenario in Management
If you research the industries and businesses that have been shut down in Kenya in the last couple of years, misappropriation and embezzlement are to blame. These companies are led by Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors, or the so-called C.E.O.s and M.D.s. Their work over the years has shown shallow-mindedness and inept leadership, and for this reason, they are closing doors one by one.
Now that Bob Collymore (R.I.P.) is no longer leading Safaricom, never get surprised if, one day, one of the most profitable companies in Africa is declared bankrupt or it's being auctioned to a white man from the old colony! This is not because of natural economic hardships but because leadership is futile, and the only skills Kenyan managers have mastered are looting and cronyism. This is responsible for the state's greatest ineptitude.
Budgets are done out of greed, not economic principles of finance, demand, and supply factors.
Uchumi closed its doors, Nakumatt is on the way out, Intercontinental Hotel is bankrupt, Bidco Industries has been prevailing in dwarf profits, employing well below average people and paying meager salaries, National Bank is drowning, and East African Portland Cement is a loss-making industry—not to mention the so-called Pride of Africa!
East African Portland Cement declared its employees redundant, which begs the question: If the status of employees is redundant, who hired them? And what of the high-level managers? Sewage? Absolute sewage!
Since its inception, Kenya Power (K.P.L.C.) has been a Kenya Power House of Corruption (K.P.H.C.) and embezzlement of the highest order. For many years, most government parastatals have been and are still dens of thieves and cruel, greedy men who can't see beyond their noses. The results? They are all closing and blacking out! Monkey trademark!
Companies are planning to lay off employees in alarming numbers, while Kenyans in snaky queues are looking for jobs. Kenya Airways is a haven of loot. Apart from running skyrocketing losses in billions for years and paying its executives unexplained billions, it has a high record of laying off hundreds of employees.
All these, while Kenya's youths are graduating with hopes of getting jobs in such companies! Talk about a country that has a knack for horrible management and theft.
Are Kenyan leaders brainless? You tell me! Perhaps not. But we all know that Bob Collymore wasn't a Kenyan; he was Guyanese, grew up and studied in Britain. Otherwise, SAFARICOM would be in shambles, making straight losses in endless scandals if he grew and studied somewhere within our borders! We have much to prove to reinforce that fact! Don't we?
We have what it takes, but WHO will it take? How can we transform our leadership to become elite and competitive on the world stage? How long are we going to have substandard health systems that even our politicians themselves run away from while flying to India and London to fix their blood pressure and stubborn diabetes?
We drive and walk on substandard roads, education systems, and dilapidated school infrastructure, and our tea and coffee farmers are uprooting them in frustration. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and there are no hopes for a better working nation shortly.
We are in the 21st century, and Kenya, a country claiming agriculture as its primary economic powerhouse, has people dying of hunger. Why are we not yet angry? Patriotism deficiency?
Tourism, another sector we claim to have a more significant economic advantage, is raven by poachers. Najib Balala (I don't know which hole he crawled out from), who was a tourism minister for several years, said that 400 elephants died of hunger in 2016! Monkey trademark!
Billions borrowed for irrigation and dam projects that could have lessened the burden of hunger and created hundreds of jobs for Kenyans have been swindled in broad daylight by the very people making our mega budgets and busy plunging our country into the abyss of loans in the name of development. Monkey trademark!
The very people who woo us with words of progress and the famous line "Let us focus on development" are the same men who mercilessly cripple the nation!
How long are Kenyans going to sit and watch? Our impervious leaders and politicians need to ponder this question because it might come back to bite them through a determined revolution that will sweep them all. It will be very embarrassing, and it's coming, pronto!
Are the Youths Ready?
The day will dawn, and young people will not be stopped in their quest to grasp their future in their own hands and become responsible for it! Some envisioned older adults have started to see the future, and they damn well know that it belongs to the young, and so their wisdom dictates that they have no choice but to support the young clench onto their future! The young bus is packing, the driver is ready, and young people will drive the bus without breaks! This country will be ruled in the future by well-abled young people and past and present politicians will only watch and feel useless and they won’t receive a state burial because they never deserved it! That day is coming pronto!
But are the young people ready, or do they still think they are, Viongozi Wa Kesho? I doubt if we are ready! Isn't Boniface-Mwangi-The-Activist alone in the streets being ridiculed by the same young people supposed to be behind him?
Regardless
It's inevitable that the prison break is coming, and little by little, Kenyans are beginning to understand that they cannot be held in an economic prison any longer.
Therefore, our politicians must get their acts together while Kenyans are still naive or patient. One day, politicians will open their doors in the morning, thinking it's all work as usual. But young people will be standing at their doors demanding all the stolen public resources!
Until we resolve the issue of leadership and management of resources in this country, and through our schools, civil and voting systems decidedly bring forth the best, skilled, and vision-oriented leaders to work in the government and companies, we will remain a dwarfed economy and eventually run ourselves out of existence, if not by war, indeed by hunger and sickness!
I will not watch my country go down that road!
Young people should stop castigating and looking for a perfect activist. If Team Courage could be better, join it, fix it from the inside, and make it perfect. I am sure Boniface is rather understanding. He and other activists are way beyond their time. It behooves all Kenyan youth with a futuristic vision to join hands with Boniface Mwangi's TEAM COURAGE and demand what he is demanding because it is the right thing and the only thing a first-world Kenyan needs.