To end violence inject hope in veins of youth

You must have heard about a man called Mutahi Ngunyi. Before the last General Election, this man said: “The elections will not be Kibaki’s to win but Raila’s to lose”.

Eight months after the polls, Kenyans are still engaged in heated debate about who won and who lost. Many of these people say they do not know who won. What they know is that after ECK declared President Kibaki the winner, youths poured into the streets and into people’s homes to protest against the outcome.

And for the first time since independence, words like “historical injustices” made their way into the political dictionary. Never mind that President Kibaki had been at the helm for only five years compared to President Moi’s 24 and President Kenyatta’s 15.

It is likely that the protests had nothing to do with who had won or who had lost. There is a possibility that the youths blocked roads and burnt property because they felt alienated. They had been promised thousands of jobs but those jobs never came their way. They had been promised loans but many could not meet the requirements for securing these loans. It is likely that they became disillusioned.

And this is where another man called Ronald Dellums comes in. Dellums is an American leader who was involved in youth affairs for a long time before he became a congressman known more for his activism on behalf of marginalised communities.

From his experiences in the poor neighbourhoods of the US, Dellums concluded that “when people feel hopeless they become nihilistic”.

A nihilist is a person who believes that nothing is valuable. Not life. Not property. Nothing. A nihilist also believes that social and political organisations should be destroyed. If you have a large group of nihilists, you can bet that they can make a country ungovernable with or without a disputed election.

I can tell you for a fact that no young man or woman will wake up one day and decide that from now on, he or she is a nihilist. This is a condition induced by years of frustration.

If we are to help more of these future leaders from embracing nihilism, our country must find a way of reducing the frustrations that young people have to endure. And we can do it. After all, we are reducing the number of licences for foreign investors and the hours it takes to clear goods at the port of Mombasa.

Corruption

But how does frustration build up in the youths? Partly through corruption and tribalism. Dellums says that when he was a young man and wanted to join the US marines, he was recruited in 48 hours.

The same cannot be said for youths in Kenya. I am told there is a mother from Thika who has taken a loan to pay a bribe so that her son can be recruited. She could as well have been from Malaba or Mashuru.

Cases abound about how corruption, tribalism and favouritism have locked deserving youths out of genuine opportunities to secure jobs or advance themselves. And you can bet that when these youths find a way to fight back against the system, they will do it like nihilists.

Of course, it is likely that there are more youths than there are opportunities. A few years back, when we were playing “ojuala” football in dusty estate streets, we had high hopes of one day joining teams like Transcom and Rivatex. This meant that we could get jobs with such companies. There was even a professional club called Volcano FC.

There were also social halls in poor neighbourhoods where people could learn boxing, karate, table tennis and other sports. These halls produced the boxers of the ‘80s and ‘90s who put “the hit squad” on the world map and won numerous medals at the Olympics.