PHOTO | PPS President Kenyatta receives the Truth, Justice and
Reconciliation Commission’s final report from team chairman Bethuel
Kiplagat at State House Nairobi.
PPS
Here is what Admiral James B. Stockdale once said on leadership:
Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leadership who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away."
What
we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they,
in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. I couldn’t have put it
better than Admiral James B. Stockdale and his thoughts echo the
negative zone aspect of our leadership.
From Kenyans
dying in Turkana, yet there was ample warning about the impeding drought
to Governors taxing us Kenyans at the source of production to those
‘eating’ under the pretext of railway.
This is the
state of affairs of our leadership and the saddest bit is that the so
called intellectuals and moreso, young intellectual are silent. We are
more worried about the gay debate, which socialite is in Dubai, or which
concert your crush is attending this Friday than the real issues that
are tearing this nation right in the middle.
After Kenyans for Kenya,
many of us believed that finally, a lasting solution had been found for
our brothers and sisters in Turkana, that hunger, drought and famine
had been dealt a death blow. Blogs were written, analyst elucidated the
way forward, warnings were given, statistics were shared and many
believed that the government and the stakeholders of Turkana would
finally do something permanent and sustainable.
INTELLECTUALS MUST RISE UP
Imagine
my shock and disbelief when I saw a tweet from the Nairobi Senator
rallying Kenyans to support his initiative to raise funds to buy food
for our fellow Kenyans in Turkana, hardly a year down the road since the
Kenyans for Kenyans initiative.
I believe that if
you educate a man or teach him how to fish, you will secure his future.
However noble Mike Sonko’s initiative is, we must for once, as
intellectuals of this nation, rise up and talk. We must tell our leaders
what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. As intellectuals,
we have failed this nation by our silence and showing interest in issues
that will not secure our future in any way.
As a
people of a blessed nation, living on handouts from our leaders as they
buy mansions and cars worth billions, as they wine and dine while we
wait under the table for crumbs, is wrong. The intellectuals must stop
worrying about who retweeted them or who will buy their books and speak
up.
In an essay on the role of intellectuals in society, Gian Tu Trung writes that he finds a great deal of truth in Einstein’s words:
“The
world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but
because of those who look on and do nothing.” A person with capabilities
and knowledge bears this kind of responsibility and owes his or her
world the benefits of their profound wisdom. Intellectuals need to use
their capacity to contribute to steering society away from the
negatively-impacting results that they foresee, not just for past
mis-directed efforts, but also for current and future inappropriate
endeavors.’
His words couldn’t be truer in our
situation. Look at the articles done by Arunga, Gaitho, Mbugua, Mbataru,
Kwame, Walubengo and Bankelele. We all know what is wrong with this
country. We know what is ailing our leadership. Yet we wield the essence
of truth with fear. These great writers, to me are the gate keepers to
the lounge of Kenyan intellectuals but yet they hold back, they refuse
to face the dragon that assails this nation in terms of leadership, be
it national or county.
LUDICROUS TAXES
Just
look at how the Governors are behaving in terms of coming up with
taxes. Who in their right mind will tax at the point of production? Who
in their sane mind introduces an HIV tax in a world where we trying our
level best to fight stigma on the same?
Look at
Bungoma, Busia, Kiambu and Kakamega counties and the ludicrous tax
options they coming up with; Chicken Tax, Banana Tax, Cow Tax, Boda boda
Tax. What are we trying to tell Kenyans really? What are we telling the
potential job creators? Why are the intellectuals silent? Why is our
focus more on gay debate issues that honestly in my view, is neither
here nor there when you look at the bigger picture and the issues facing
us, as Kenyans?
When you look at the environment of
leadership through the kaleidoscope of what true leadership is supposed
to be, you will weep for Kenya. Our leadership lacks the counsel and
advice of intellectuals. When you look at the British Parliament and
House of Lords, the leaders there invite the academic world and other
analysts on certain days for them to appear before them to analyze and
debate proposed legislation or policy, and how it will affect society
and the business world. They infuse intellectuals into their legislative
process.
This is the approach that our counties should
have taken in terms of coming up with legislation. Have the
intellectuals give their advice and opinion. When those charged with the
responsibility to talk, critique and analyze focus on mundane issues,
when the poor are helpless and the political class and those that are
connected are ‘eating’, then a country is about to implode and it won’t
be pretty. Amid the silence of the intellectuals, corruption, greed,
crime and tribalism have taken permanent root that no leadership will be
able to remove unless all Kenyans are pulling in the same direction.
Dee
Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa once said neither control nor
management is leadership; leadership is leadership. “If you seek to
lead, invest at least 50 per cent of your time in leading yourself—your
own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20
per cent leading those with authority over you and 15 per cent leading
your peers."
I believe he was talking about our
leaders. None of them invest anything for us. They take advantage of
their positions to enrich themselves. It’s time the youth, the
intellectuals, the feminists all focused on what is important before we
have no country to engage in. We have enough examples all around us of
what it could be like if we do not do something.
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