the new ruling class that superseded the colonial regime , but as for the lot of the common Mwananchi , nothing changed . The poverty that we talked about at independence was caused by the displacement of people from their ancestral land by the settlers and since the land was not given back the poverty was not going to magically disappear . It was a case of same forest with different monkeys .
With the exception of getting a new flag and a new national anthem , few Kenyans can actually attest to any new changes in their livelihood and one person quipped that once where Africans were not allowed to enter they still could not enter as they were now not invited members .
Those estates that Africans could not enter were still out of bounds since the estates had become gated communities . The lot of the common Mwananchi had not improved and in some cases they deteriorated as the African master was harsher than the departed colonist .
The new government was painfully aware of the lack of a national outlook and the growing political tension due to ideological differences . Many genuine social reformers were disappointed to realize that their political investment had reaped naught .
The same ethnic based politicking continued after independence and the fall out between the first president with his vice president and their becoming intractable foes has affected Kenyan politics for decades and a solution is not yet in sight .
The fallout made Kenya a de facto one party state as the opposition parties were harassed and since political expression was stifled people retreated into their tribal enclaves and began to agitate for change under the tribal umbrella .
To stem this trend in 1980 the government banned all ethnic organizations be they economic , political , social or recreational and declared that English and Swahili would henceforth be the national languages . Kenya just swept the ethnic dirt under the carpet , they side-stepped the issue of national integration .
In 1982 the National assembly amended the constitution making Kenya officially a one party state , the excuse was that negative ethnicity was robbing Kenya of the opportunity to integrate and develop , so rather than celebrate our diversity we chose to suppress it .
When we created the forty seven counties as devolved units we actually created the counties along tribal boundaries making it even more difficult for a national leader to address the self-destructive insular focus that defines ethnicity .
When a visitor from a neighboring country observed that Kenyans run their affairs as though they are running a temporary country waiting to migrate to their real country , it is then that one is struck by the lack of a national soul .
When the Kenyan politician says that it is their turn to eat it means exactly what is being said , the rape of the country resources because that group holds political power . But the beneficiary is not the tribe but the tribal leaders who are in power thanks to the tribal voting robots .
One has to believe that Kenya is an extremely rich and industrious country because with the incessant political thievery the country has not yet collapsed and it is a testimony to its resilience that despite rogue leadership the country does not falter .
One gets to hear the much bantered talk that what Kenya needs is a benevolent dictator to whip the country into shape but you soon realize that the speaker has never lived in a dictatorship and they forget that colonialism was a benevolent dictatorship .
After all colonialism brought us education and religion and that vague word , civilization . One just has to delve a bit back into the Ethnic culture to realize that the African had always been civil but was conned through religion and education to give up his birthright but again land was communal .
The various five year development plans that we have had since independence is a hangover from the colonial times and they were meant to plan how to intensely mine the land of its resources by providing the necessary infrastructure to exploit a particular area .
Those projects that were linked to the productive capacity of an area are today merely legacy projects done to impress ones constituents not to improve the productive potential of an area . Many have become white elephants on inception .
The nearest we got as a country to having a common goal was the Vision 2030 whose aim was to create a globally competitive and prosperous country with a high quality of life in a clean and secure environment by the year 2030 .
But this dream has been derailed by the periodic five-year election cycles which means that Kenya hits the reset button every five years with the new government trashing the work of the previous government as though they were serving aliens .
Which Way For Kenya ?
What Kenya needs is a patriot , someone who deeply loves this country and someone who is visionary enough to realize that the strength of Kenya is the ability to harness the combined intellect and diversity of all Kenyans in all walks of life .
A patriot that is aware that the national cake needs to be baked first before it is shared out and one who desists from selling hot air to Kenyans in terms of economic strategies that do not work and projects designed to impoverish certain groups in Kenya .
A patriot that realizes that the true legacy that a leader leaves behind is the general improvement in the various social indices that measure the quality of life for all Kenyans and not to a group that one owes allegiance due to political support .
A patriot that will use the power of office to defend the rights of the weakest member of the Kenyan society rather than wield that power to enrich the already rich cronies that form the inner circle of the leader and who shamelessly rob the poor .
A patriot who will realize that he is responsible for the ethos of Kenya and that his job is to harness the Kenyan potential and to communicate that to every Kenyan and to create a sense of belonging to the country and to cultivate what the national values should be .
That patriot is the person who will succeed in branding Kenya as a country and truly be head of state and not a head of factions and economic mafias . A patriot who will put Kenya above self and walk his talk in the pursuit of a better Kenya for everyone .
The cover piece was pieced together by the Marketing Africa editorial crew . For feedback or any more discourse please drop us a line at : Info @ marketingafrica . co . ke .