We had just concluded an early morning strategy breakfast meeting at a popular coffee shop when a friend , who is a renowned researcher and a popular pollster walked in and l motioned her to join us .
I introduced her to my colleagues , who were understandably excited to meet her and after the usual pleasantries mainly alluding to the heavy rains , it was inevitable that someone would ask her what Kenyans felt about the current administration .
Since she had already published her polls on the best performing members of parliament , senators , cabinet secretaries , governors and counties for the current year , my colleagues were keen to hear the news about the general scorecard .
On sitting down and ordering her coffee and a chocolate croissant , she decided to first educate us on the use and misuse of polls as she was very concerned that the profession has in the past been misused for selfish agendas .
Pollsters have in the past been accused of bias just because when a result is published on an emotive subject like politics there will always be those who attack the results so long as they do not favor their preconceived position .
She informed us that rogue researchers have used polls as a propaganda tool to suggest that the opinions that those in power want to push through to the public as actually already popular and thereby sway the masses .
She stated that it is infinitely simpler to run a poll on a number of set criteria that measures the performance of an incumbent political position holder against what he is reasonably expected to achieve given the reason for the existence of that particular position .
My colleagues , unsatisfied and feeling that she was diplomatically dodging the question insisted on an answer , to which she replied that in her experience as a pollster she had never seen a leader lose popularity so dramatically , even in his strongholds .
This statement led to a lengthy and animated discussion which concluded , almost unanimously , that there was something fundamentally wrong in Kenya yet we had just concluded the first year with four to go .
It was time for us to proceed to office and we agreed that the topic was not exhausted and would be revisited and as we bid her goodbye , she slyly quipped , with a massive disclaimer , that she felt that in 2022 Kenyans noisily voted for Arsenal .
In a country totally obsessed with the English Premier League , the comment was quickly understood and elicited laughter and immediate indignation depending on where loyalty fell , if time allowed it would have been another debate .
To translate for those who are not football aficionados , what the lady said is that being at the top of the league table does not necessarily translate into delivering the league cup . The league is a marathon not a speed dash , this was a damning statement for Kenya Kwanza .
To carry the analogy further , the fact that one has been an early bloomer and has been successful in the past in a different situation or position is not sufficient proof that one will perform spectacularly well in a new environment .
There is a well-known African adage that a good day is evident in the morning and we are left wondering what early signs did Kenyans glean that indicated that the Kenya Kwanza administration would be a good fit for Kenya .
The qualities that kept on being bandied around were that the then candidate was a very intelligent and organized person and an excellent political mobilizer . Kenyans were told that his youthful energy would translate into a great leader .
What everyone knew and conveniently chose to ignore is that a disloyal follower is very unlikely to make a good leader . To actively undermine the very government you serve in , is to unfortunately renounce the principle of collective responsibility .
The inordinate amount of cash that the candidate was splashing around during his campaigns , especially as donations to churches led to accusations to grand theft in the ministries that his cohorts held .
That accusation , although not denied , was unsustainable by the fact that his supporters claimed that if he was a thief , so was the president but in this case the president was carrying the baggage of his father , a neat twist to sidestep the issue .
The attempt by the then president to drive out his deputy ’ s cronies from dipping their hands into the public coffers was again deftly termed as the victimization of those who had the best interests of Kenyans at heart .
The role that the candidate had played in the post-election violence of 2007 is well documented and in the public domain such that the two leaders who were then adversaries were hauled to The Hague to answer charges of crimes against humanity .
The fact that the ICC has been demonized , and justifiably so , as a court for African leaders does not detract from the fact that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute them . Kenyans chose both for top office knowing that choices have consequences .
When the candidate picked a rabble rouser and a perceived political thug as his running mate , the penny should have dropped that all was not well in the Kenya Kwanza union . A person who had several pending cases against him in court , did not augur well for Kenya .
The aforementioned seems to tip the scale on the negative side and required Kenyans to ask the question , what early morning signs led Kenyans to decide that the Kenya Kwanza administration would deliver them to prosperity ?
The Kenya Kwanza administration swept into office on a highly deceptive and cunning concept of the ‘ hustler nation ’ where voters were manipulated to believe that it was them against the contrived phantom enemy , the dynasties .
As electioneering heated up , so were the will-o-the-wisp campaign promises ramped up and they were grandiose , lofty , idealistic and appealed to the electorate who didn ’ t bother to interrogate them to realize that they were actually illusory and abstract .
They were told that hunger would be a thing of the past as the new government would put in measures to provide cheap fertilizer and the ill-fated Galana Kulalu irrigation project would be revived to ensure that food security was achieved within a year .
Voters were told categorically that the everelusive access to universal health care would be a thing of the past as by the end of 2022 all eligible Kenyans would be signed up to the NHIF and the healthcare infrastructure would receive adequate funding .
Kenya has always had an untidy and inequitable relationship with its education system giving rise to a strange parallel structure that allows Kenyans , depending on income levels , to pursue different curricula in educational formation . Kenya Kwanza stated that they would address