Let’s plan for life after August 8 since we all will be moving on

Uasin Gishu County Governor Jackson Mandago (right) and Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi who are Jubilee Party candidates in the August 8 General Election, endorse an ODM candidate Charles Okumu Obwonji for the Langas Ward seat during a rally in Eldoret town on July 28, 2017. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Elections are just part of the process of the progressive growth of our nation.
  • After August 8, there will still be Kenya and one can only pray it will continue to be a peaceful Kenya in which each one of us can continue to be productive.
  • For those candidates that will be elected for the first time, there will be a difference.

The next eight days will be a tense week for many Kenyans both candidates and ordinary citizens.

Those two categories are different but their emotional involvement in the ongoing events may be driven by the same kind of thinking.

For reasons known to themselves ordinary citizens want their candidates to win the elections while the candidates are driven by the urge to conquer and control.

The tension of this moment is as if this election is the end of everything. Is it?

There cannot be anything that is further from the truth.

GROWTH

Elections are just part of the process of the progressive growth of our nation.

After August 8, there will still be Kenya and one can only pray it will continue to be a peaceful Kenya in which each one of us can continue to be productive.

For those candidates that will be elected for the first time, there will be a difference.

For the ordinary Kenyan no matter what side of the political divide they support, I do not think there will be much of a difference.

The one thing that is constant is Kenya will continue to move on.

SERIOUS WORK

Even as we move on, everyone must understand after the polls there is serious work to be done.

Apart from what we must do to improve our condition we must also not forget we, as a nation, are part of the world community and therefore to a large extent many of the problems of the world are also our problems.

Take for instance the questions of pollution, global warming and climate change or indeed the general issues of the environment.

Of course a polluted political environment might not be conducive enough for addressing such matters.

The other day I saw a news item that attracted my attention. It said the United Kingdom have decided by 2040 they will stop the manufacture of either petrol or diesel driven vehicles. France has made a similar decision.

SALE OF PLASTIC

India is a little more ambitious and wants to do that by 2030 and there is yet another nation that intends to accomplish this by 2025.

This means there are nations that are not just talking about environmental matters but have already started doing something about it.

Where are we in all this? I know the sale of plastic has been banned. What else is being done? How will that decision by those nations affect us?

Will they dump their petrol or diesel powered vehicles on our lap? Even as we address things to do with devolution the government that will be elected on the 8th has bigger things to think about.

Writer is Dean of Students at the University of Nairobi [email protected]