23:47 As is the the norm in democracies people get the leaders they deserve. Despite our complaints that our choices are limited, our fallacious arguments that all politicians are dishonest and can be bribed, and the truth is, we choose those who leads us. If we are afflicted with bad leaders it is because we have chosen them over better ones.
I think, if pushed to think about it, the average voter would probably agree, at least in theory, that the parliament should be a creative mix of people who have worked at home and abroad in as wide a range of jobs as possible.
I'd like entrepreneurs and innovators and one or two hot-shot accountants, economists, managers and bankers - yes, bankers - who have worked in industry and understand the nuts and bolts of the global economy. Less of the lawyers who find counter arguments on all issues, yes- few of them who will argue the legality of food being brought on the tables for all Kenyans.
I'd like farmers, fishermen, shopkeepers, garage-owners, matatu touts, kalembes, big and small, who could speak with authority about how laws that are fine in theory work in practice, as well as labourers and cleaners.
There would be room for a cross-section of ex-public servants from all ranks, through clerks and nurses and police and soldiers to councillors. Oh, and the odd scientist might be handy, along with a moral philosopher, an investigative journalist who had explored the sewers of our urban wastelands, and a historian of the kind who can clarify our present by reference to our past. Not to speak of a jester who could cut everyone down to size (Kalambe vs Wetangula).
We all subscribe unthinkingly these days to Abraham Lincoln's dictum that government should be run "by the people, for the people". So how is it that in fact it's run by the narrowest of narrow elites who know of little beyond the lawns of Muthaiga Golf club, the posh Mercedes Benz, the state house and the confines of parliament? Do you know how scared our leaders are to walk on the streets of Nairobi, other than during public demonstrations?
Now that Kenyans are starving from North to South, for the first time in our history people are starving in the President’s backyard of Othaya, Muranga, NSE is at its lowest, corruption scandals are the order of the day, money is scarce, Kenyans are united at least in pain. We are united in crying loud about theleaders we have. Regardless of whether we are PNU, ODM or Kalonzo’s joke, we are united in one opinion that we have a charade for leaders. Is it not us who elected them? Is it not Kenyans who were bribed and bought to vote? Are we justified to expect anything from our leaders?
We get the leaders we deserve because we have the power to dismiss them and we do not. It is our duty to vote our interest rather than our passions, if we fail to do this, if we fail to choose those who have the best interest of the people at heart; we betray ourselves and our children. As Shakespeare would have pointed out, the fault, dear electors, is not in our stars, but in us.
Enjoy your meal if you are lucky to have one!
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