Please, just don’t mess us up, Kenya is the only home we know

Egerton University (Town Campus) students demonstrating on September 29, 2017 against the new exam fees imposed by the institution's administration. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The activities and pronouncements of a good section of our political class have placed us at a point where we really cannot either individually or collectively predict our future.
  • Today, there is a lot of talk about whether or not the presidential election ordered by the Supreme Court will happen.

Kenya is not looking that good at this particular moment. The activities and pronouncements of a good section of our political class have placed us at a point where we really cannot either individually or collectively predict our future. Each of the competing forces has a fanatical following which they use as a shield and security for their ambitions.

One would have wished that this matter would have been sorted out in the August 8 election – in which a majority of Kenyans participated in good faith – but our honourable Supreme Court thought otherwise. We have heard utterances many of which can only be attributed to politicians who perpetually do raw politics.

Where we are today, we seriously need leaders and statesmen and women but not politicians. Someone once said “a politician thinks about the next election while a statesman thinks about the next generation.”

Today, there is a lot of talk about whether or not the presidential election ordered by the Supreme Court will happen.

POLITICIANS

One camp says “election will not happen!” while the other says to the contrary. The arguments are many and they do not sound reasonable.

Dear politicians and the few leaders and statesmen there are: We humble Kenyans – including the youths that jump and do what you tell them to do — do not have another home.

If you do, just know that the majority of us have nowhere else to go and so, kindly do not mess us up.

If you — just because you are a politician — only care about what is in this confusion for you as an individual, then you are not good for this country.

What we expect of you is a patriotic approach to the issues at hand and the realisation that anarchy will not take this country anywhere. 

GOOD EDUCATION

The youth of this country want a good education. All those other categories of society need an organised social security system.

We all need a good network of infrastructural systems that support our economic activities. I do understand that you all fight to get into power with promises to do these things but I do not think a country can be in a political campaign mood forever.

Political power should be for the good of the people but not for you as an individual. Confusion might benefit some individuals in the short term but, in the long run, it will be to the detriment of the larger good.

This country is greater than any single individual or even any one community. 

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