Dearth of true leaders voters’ challenge

The National Assembly. PHOTO | STEPHEN MUDIARI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Despite all the progress made in political development, Kenya still lacks committed, patriotic and nationalistic leaders.
  • Our pre- and immediate post-independence leaders, who were in the forefront of the liberation struggle, must be turning in their graves at the mere thought of the conduct of the crop that succeeded them.
  • Most of our leaders no longer care about the kind of legacy that they will leave behind and are more concerned with amassing wealth and engaging in relentless political fights to maintain the status quo.
  • Women need to take up the challenge and be in the forefront in driving poverty out of our midst once they have been empowered.

It’s a pity that despite all the progress that we have made with some huge strides in socio-economic and political development over the years, our country still lacks really committed, patriotic and nationalistic leaders.

Sadly, what we have today are just self-serving and egoistic individuals, who claim to champion the interests of the people, while in the true sense of the word they are actually less concerned with the plight of the people and will always take any available opportunity to further their own interests at their expense.

Our pre- and immediate post-independence leaders, who were in the forefront of the liberation struggle, must be turning in their graves at the mere thought of the unbecoming conduct of the crop that succeeded them.

If they could just wake up one day, they would be stunned and would shun this country, where the gap between the rich and poor is rapidly growing day by day.

IMMENSE ADVERSITY

Although it is often said that leaders are born and not made, some are, indeed, born in the midst of immense adversity.

There are some good reasons why I believe that most of our early post and pre-independence leaders rightly belong to this category of those who were born to guide others.

Indeed, simple people are known to take up leadership roles when a situation they can care about requires that responsibility. So where did the rain start beating us?

Is it that we have increasingly been reduced to a man-eat-man society so that we no longer care about the service to others that is required of us?

The society that requires that we lead the role of emancipating it from bondage has been left to the dogs as we fall over ourselves to aggrandise wealth and other pursuits at expense of serving the people.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

The voters at every election have high expectations from the leaders they elect. But they end up getting disappointed because of the turncoat leadership that immediately becomes the unreachable princes to the people they are supposed to serve.

Most of our leaders no longer care about the kind of legacy that they will leave behind and are more concerned with amassing wealth and engaging in relentless political fights to maintain the status quo after running away from poverty, which is rampant among our people.

Few of the current leaders can stand up be counted on how they have helped to alleviate poverty in their areas or engaged in any initiative to uplift the lives of their people.

This is the reason why we need full implementation of the two-thirds gender rule so that we can have more women in leadership. After all, as the saying goes, educating a woman is like educating an entire generation.

DRIVING POVERTY OUT

Women need to take up the challenge and be in the forefront in driving poverty out of our midst once they have been empowered.

It’s paramount that the voters wake up and elect leaders who are sensitive to their plight and who have the conscience to fight for their empowerment.

The electorate should refuse to second guess and pick truly selfless servant leaders they can look expect to carry their burdens and deliver services.

Unless this happens, we shall remain stuck in the dire situation for a long time to come and probably only Jesus Christ will return and save us.

Ms Nangabo is Trans Nzoia County Women Representative in Parliament. [email protected]