By Innocent N
I have authored beautiful articles on this forum about President Uhuru Kenyatta. And I meant every single one of them. Uhuru is a ‘cool’ guy. And I love cool. He has totally demystified the presidency. I’ve never met him in person. But friends who have tell me that when you’re around him, you won’t even realize that you’re around the President.
For the first time since independence, we’ve had a President who dabs, blushes when a supporter shouts “nakupenda” and stops to say hello to an old man who chauffered him when he was still a boy. He really is a likable character.
But in this country today, cool ain’t going to solve the problems we face. Dabbing cannot improve access to quality healthcare for the ordinary citizen. Photo-ops while eating Nyama Choma at roadside eateries has not created the 1 million annual jobs that Jubilee promised.
Smiling shyly at smitten female supporters has not changed the fact that today, Kenya scores poorly in the global corruption perception index compared to 2013. In a nutshell, under the cool, likeable and adorable President Kenyatta, this country is in a worse situation than it was five years ago.
Jubilee will point at SGR. Indeed, it’s the government’s poster project. What Jubilee will not explain is why this project cost 420 billion shillings while the Ethiopia Djibouti SGR line which is 100 km longer cost 340 billion shillings to construct. Jubilee will not explain why Kenyans still die of hunger when over 7 billion was pumped into the Galana-Kulalu irrigation project.
Jubilee promised Laptops for kids within their first five years in office. That promise is yet to be delivered. Don’t think the Laptop rollout has been delayed because of budgetary shortfalls. No! This project is experiencing delays because of infights within President Kenyatta’s administration on who will benefit most from the tendering process.
The cost of living is simply unbearable. Can you imagine that a government fails to create opportunities for it’s people and if that is not enough, goes ahead and starves them? In the meantime, insiders like Waiguru are able to orchestrate massive heists and walk away without facing prosecution. I don’t know what you call it but this is simply wrong and unacceptable.
I might not be comfortable with NASA out of purely personal reasons. But this country is greater than my feelings and attitude. It’s not about whether I like NASA. It’s about whether NASA has the ability to transform this country. At this moment in time, I believe it does. Raila is not cool. He is an old man who slurs in his speech. But let’s look beyond cool. Can he deliver? Can he get the job done? If he can, then our little personal feelings about him notwithstanding, let us support him.
For once, let us put tribal considerations aside, let us put our feelings aside, let us ignore our misconceptions​ and biases. For the sake of this country and for the sake of posterity let us all rally behind NASA. If Jubilee could not perform in the past five years, don’t be mistaken into believing that they will deliver in the next five.
God bless Kenya!
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