Educated leaders will be more enlightened and productive

Two years ago, I had the rare opportunity of addressing a group of women members of Nairobi County Assembly on how to use the media to push their political and development agenda.

To this day, I am still not sure whether I got through because even when I tried to persuade them that an occasional opinion article or Letter to the Editor would do their careers a world of good, their silence was eloquent.

But one of the ladies caught me and asked me whether I really believed my advocacy had made a difference. How many of her colleagues, she asked, sought my advice on how to write articles? “We really have to raise the bar on the education level of MCAs”, she said, “Many cannot understand or express themselves in English.”

I thought that was a little too harsh and told her that maybe my presentation was inadequate and in any case, they must have been hungry since it was just before the lunch break. But she was not so sure.

“Right now, I am pursuing a Masters, but many of them are Class 8 and Form Four leavers and they don’t open their mouths during debate. You should come and see.”

I told her I would, one day, and then hurriedly excused myself. I had no desire to judge my fellow Kenyans on account of their educational achievements, especially considering that they had been elected by thousands of voters who must have been of sound mind. But this exchange did raise some important questions about education and leadership.

DEGREE CERTIFICATE

Is there any connection? Must a leader have a degree certificate or diploma to be effective? Must he or she have gone to school at all? Don’t we have examples of some Kenyans who were basically illiterate but went on to become great captains of industry and professors of politics? Don’t we, at a personal level, know of school-mates who dropped out early, but were in a few years to become millionaires and influential members of society?

And in any case, haven’t we come across academic giants who are at the same time idiots of the first order (they hardly know enough to get out of the rain or to tie their own shoe-laces), as well as despicable ethnic bigots, hirelings of the Establishment and apologists for canny despotism?

Who doesn’t know about the infamous group of university lecturers dubbed “academics for hire” in the early 1990s?

There are no clear-cut answers to the question of whether it is necessary to hold a degree to be elected a Member of Parliament, governor or senator.

But one thing is obvious; a little more education does nobody any harm, and in any case, education and leadership are not mutually exclusive.

What is inexcusable is to try and rationalise ignorance, something that is likely to happen robustly if and when the debate on a proposal by the IEBC gains currency.

The proposal that all aspirants for election to Parliament or county chiefs be degree-holders while aspirants for membership to county assemblies must be the proud owners of diplomas is nothing new.

CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

This was part of the constitutional requirements under the new Elections Act, but MPs would have none of it. In their characteristic self-serving fashion, they watered down the provision and decreed that all that was needed was post-secondary education. Apparently, any other law would have locked out a good number of the current MPs.

That is why it is not certain that the IEBC proposal will see the light of day this round either. There are some instances where the tyranny of numbers does not work, especially when the issue is about self-preservation.

There is no reason why the same MPs who rejected the provision should accept it now while debating the Elections Law through an amendment.

But a sober debate is still required because we cannot have a bunch of ignoramuses running the affairs of State through legislation.

On a rather amusing note, if the amendment sails through, only seven out of 41 MCAs in a certain county will survive the purge.

This kind of thing could be one strong reason why the proposal is likely to be rejected, but it should be the exception rather than the rule.

However elitist it may sound, an educated leadership is bound to be a lot more enlightened and productive than otherwise.

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