Happy birthday Kenya, but we really need to change the way we do things
Residents of Kibera, Nairobi, near the railway line on 25th March 2010.The politics of representing Africa has never been about the distinction between the West and rest of us, writes Godwin Murunga. Photo/James Njuguna /NATION
What you need to know:
- We need a clever deal that destroys tribal alliances and forces Kenyans to associate on the basis of interest, belief, values, or whatever else.
- We must look at the numbers and the trends, imagine the future, and plan for it.
- Wealthy people think poor people must get off their backsides and get some work done. This is primitive and illiterate thinking.
In 40 years, Kenya will be the smallest country in East Africa in terms of population. Those of us who will be around in 2063 will be living in a rather different place. There is, of course, a chance that we might not be there as a country in 50 years if we continue thieving from the public and killing each other.
Though we will be small, we will be better off, living longer, our children with a better chance of survival.
The US Census Bureau estimates that in 2050, Kenya’s population will be 70,755,000, up from the current 43.2 million. Population growth will be quite low, 0.8 per cent, the slowest in the region. We will be living longer, 76 years, up from the current 63.
The number of children dying at infancy will be down to 12 out of every 1,000 births. The deaths of children at infancy today are 63 out of every 1,000, one of the most shameful and painful facts of our national life. It has been worse: 74 in 1995.
There are 2.7 million people missing from our demographics because of Aids. We can assume in future that similar health challenges will complicate things.
Here is the future: In 2050, we will be living in a region of 487,731,000 people (up from 287.8 million today). There will be 144.408 million Congolese, 131.261 million Ethiopians, and 118.586 million Tanzanians. Even the Ugandans, at 93.476 million, will be more than us.
The choice we can make today is whether we want to live in an environmentally devastated, polluted, and overpopulated, but desperately poor country, or whether we want an organised, greener, richer future for our children.
What data and forecasts do is help us travel in time. It helps us go into the future, look around, and come back and implement plans to change that future. For example, there will be a significant rise in temperatures over the next 100 years. The rise in Africa is probably twice the global average.
Secondly, there is also going to be an increase in precipitation. So what does this mean for a country in which agriculture employs 70 per cent of the people?
Higher precipitation in a deforested, hotter environment where the rain washes off the good soil then evaporates before you can plant is bad.
We can change the future today by doing four things. First, we need to start being really clever. It is not a heroic thing to be a guy who does not read and therefore has no clue what is going on around him. We must look at the numbers and the trends, imagine the future, and plan for it.
One of the best things we ever did was to devolve resources and responsibility. Counties must plan long-term. Idiots who are doing volleyball tournaments and think it is development need to be got rid of quickly.
We must also forget about trickle-down economics. Every plan we make, every breath we take must have the objective of tackling poverty, providing social services, saving more children and more mothers. We need to plan and implement things rather than shouting them from the platform.
We need to keep a hawk eye on inequality. Wealthy people think that it is right to be wealthy because they have worked for it. They think poor people must get off their backsides and get some work done. This is primitive and illiterate thinking.
A well catered-for population makes better workers and better customers for capitalists. A wealthy and contented populace is very good business.
Thirdly, we need to stop stealing from the public. There is a group of people whose only work is to do fishy deals and perpetrate large-scale theft of public money. The government buys at twice or three times what everyone else pays. The government does not punish waste.
We need to come up with a way that will enable politicians and their hangers-on to make money without dipping into the public purse.
Finally, we need to fix our unhealthy politics. We need to find a way of playing national politics rather than every election being strife between the Luo and the Kikuyu with the rest playing supporting roles.
We need a clever deal that destroys tribal alliances and forces Kenyans to associate, not on the basis of tribe, but on the basis of interest, belief, values, or whatever else.
Happy birthday, beloved Kenya!
