Be in the know to lose your hopelessness

Whenever I travel around the country and I talk to Kenyans from all walks of life, I keep discovering that we are not just a walking and working nation, but a very ignorant one too.

When I am not working during my travels, I ask very many people very many questions, after which we chat, discuss and do all those other things which our MPs do not do as they are always shouting at one another on national TV, all in the name of debating.

There is this question, which when I ask, I am always met with blank stares. Then, I am left wondering why even district commissioners — yes, I meet them — and many other civil servants are in the dark over a very important initiative that all Kenyans should know about and be proud of.

In spite of all the things people might want to say about Vision 2030, I find it a well-conceived, meaningful, wonderful and noble initiative that makes for a good case study on how to ensure that ideas do not just remain on paper.

So why is the government so keen on keeping the information about Vision 2030 in its bosom that even members of the provincial administration know so little about it? Why is it that information about Vision 2030 does not filter down to Kenyans, the people who are supposed to benefit from it and who are funding it? Oh!

There is a colour-coded website with green, orange and red strips to explain the different stages of the flagship projects’ incompletion, but how many Kenyans know about the existence of the website, and how many of them have access to the Internet in the first place?

Information is power, but by either the will of nature or the mind of man, Kenyans are increasingly being disempowered and those who have sworn to defend the Constitution continuously flout Section 35 that guarantees every citizen the right to information from the State.

Whichever way you look at it, lack of access to information will not only be the bane of this country, but has been the cause of most, if not all, of our problems as a nation.

The progress made toward winning the war against HIV and Aids has been possible because people were empowered by being bombarded with information about it.

To make matters even easier, the hitherto unknown condition was given a name in all local dialects as all forms of media were employed to ensure that people knew what to do and what not to do when it came to HIV and Aids.

I have looked high and low for any material in local dialects about Vision 2030. I have never found any, and until now I highly doubt even if there is an official or recognisable phrase or word for it in Kiswahili, the national language.

Is it not ironic that at a time when we have made several advances in communication technology and at a time when we have an initiative whose bedrock is information and communication technology, we do not have enough information about the same initiative, much worse in local languages?

This is not just an indictment on the Vision 2030 Secretariat’s communication strategy. It is about the ignorance of a nation caused by lack of information about numerous issues, initiatives and projects that we have paid for, or will pay for.

These secretive projects lower our standards of living and raise the cost of living since time and money are wasted in either redoing them or reviving those that stalled due to corruption or because politicians were engaged in cat fights.

Lack of access to information, and by extension ignorance, is costing us more than these brick and mortar flagship projects because the parental authority feels that information can only be accessed by the lucky few, a coterie which goes gaga, yo-yo and wild to defend it every time questions are raised.

For the past several weeks, pro-and anti-government politicians have been on each others throats over some appointments and the public has no say because it is at sea when it comes to the laws governing such appointments.

It is increasingly becoming clear that we passed the Constitution not because we understood it, but because we liked the people who were behind it.

Since then, the parental authority has never seen it necessary to break it down in simpler terms, or in local dialects, to make governing us easier, and eventually put a stop to all these noises about so-and-so has gone against the Constitution whenever he sneezes or reminds Kenyans that they are ”bloody bure kabisa.”

Why the hullabaloo about the oil find in Turkana? What is going on with the Youth Fund, what happened at the NHIF and the NSSF, what was the problem at the CBK when the shilling lost traction and we had to pay for goods and services through our noses?

Millions of taxpayers have no idea. So, sideshows have become the parental authority’s way of explaining away infractions and cases of corruption.

Eventually, politicians or “politically-correct” individuals who can shout the loudest about their communities being targeted carry the day while the voiceless majority continues to live and die in sufferance while paying for projects they understand little about.

We have wallowed in ignorance for too long thanks to politicians and their many spokespersons. Ideally, we do not need them like we do communication specialists.