KikuyusForChange

New crop of leaders are relics of the old order. Their mind frame still old school

Sunday Nation, 28 September, 2008

Looking Ahead, By By Mutahi Ngunyi

Whenever I talk with my watchman, I get depressed. Especially after I made him in charge of Vision 2030 in my household. The man is a Raila maniac, but he has lost hope. He tells me that in the Moi days, Mwai Kibaki was the hope for change. And when President Kibaki came to power, Raila Odinga became the symbol of hope. Now that they have combined, he is lost. To add insult to injury, Mr Odinga is asking him to get circumcised as part of change. The guy is not amused. In fact, he is tired of these Odinga games! But there is one more thing. He believes that the Prime Minister has been set up for failure by President Kibaki. And, on this account, I agree. By allowing him to behave like the “acting president,” the president has exposed him. Without giving him the powers, he has allowed him to show us the type of president he will make. If two of his sisters are on the list of potential ambassadors, how outrageous will he be as president?

Like Mr Odinga, the other pretenders to the presidency are no better. Take M/s Martha Karua for instance. Her quest for 2012 is not about a new vision; it is about Martha Karua. After listening to her for months now, all I hear is recycled stuff. Nothing new, nothing, visionary, just gusto! Her vision is not different from that of the Kibaki-Raila union. And, as a result, we cannot expect her to take us to new lands using an old map. In sum, I am beginning to believe that M/s Karua is a tired idea. More so because, as the saying goes “… he who is narrow of vision cannot be big of heart.” If the lady had a big heart and a cause beyond self, she would have attracted serious leaders. Instead, her companions are charlatans and political “cartoons.” On this account only, we must not take her seriously!

In my view, therefore, 2012 should be about a new vision, not the personalities in the political marketplace. This new vision is what will give my watchman hope, not the elevation of Mr Odinga to the presidency. Similarly, the Kikuyu Internally Displaced People in the Rift Valley will not enjoy tenure by making M/s Karua President. They will only enjoy peace if the country has a new way of doing politics. And this new way is what M/s Karua and Mr Odinga should be about, not their histories. But is this crop of leaders capable of crafting a new vision? My submission is that they are relics of the old order. Although they were in opposition all along, their mind frame is still old school. Because of this, they are likely to retire with President Kibaki by default.

But who will the new vision-makers be? Allow me to answer the question with a story. A little girl called Liz was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of survival was a blood transfusion from her give-year-old brother who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies necessary to combat it. The doctors explained the situation to her little brother and asked the boy if he was willing to give blood to his sister. He hesitated for a while before taking a deep breath and indicating that he would. As the blood transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled seeing life return to her cheeks. Then, from nowhere, he looked up to the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “When do I get to die?” Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to give his sister all of his blood and die in order to save her.

The moral: “… you should work like you do not need the money, love like you have never been hurt, and dance like you do when no one is watching!” In other words, the vision-makers are a group of people who will do it sacrificially and for no audience. Similarly they will expect nothing in return. And this is the type of people that Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were. They sacrificed their families and personal comfort for the good of the commonwealth. Although such people are rare, I believe we have vision-makers of sorts in Kenya. If this is true, these people will not choose the time; the time will choose them and thrust them into their new roles. Similarly, the new vision-makers will come from a group of heretics. And of these, two groups have begun to form. The first is that of the GEMA heretics. This is a group of change-makers from the Meru community and the Kikuyu in the Rift Valley. The two have decided to break away from the yoke of the Central Province Kikuyus. If they sustain this schism, their move will transform national politics fundamentally. More so if the Rift Valley Kikuyus decide to vote with the Kalenjin and other communities in their localities. The second group is emerging from the Luo nation. In this community, it is impossible to contradict Mr Odinga. But arising from the circumcision issue, a new breed of Luo heretics who dare oppose him is emerging. In my view, the future of the Luo nation lies with these change-makers! And now a word of caution to the two assistant ministers who offered to get circumcised at the age of 60: Be afraid, be very afraid!

2012 should be about vision, not personalities

Mutahi Ngunyi is a political scientist with The Consulting House, a policy and security think-tank for the Great Lakes region and West Africa.

Tags: Mutahi, Vision-makers