ITS OUR TIME TO LEAD!!

I belong to the Maziwa ya Nyayo Generation. For those who do not know what I am talking about, this is a generation of people born during the late seventies up to the mid eighties in Kenya. It is also the generation that benefited from free milk given to public schools during President Moi’s era. As far as I can remember I first took Maziwa ya Nyayo (Nyayo’s Milk) in 1991.I don’t remember taking it after 1995, maybe because I joined a mission a boarding school in 1996 or because by then KCC, the public factory charged with producing the milk had started making huge losses due to embezzlement of funds among other corrupt acts. I grew up thinking Nyayo was one of the president Moi’s names. It was until  later in life when I learnt that this name was coined from the president Moi’s favorite  phrase, ‘Fuata Nyayo’  which simply implied that his government was following  after the footsteps of the first leader of the independent  Kenya, President Jomo Kenyatta. Just like me, most people did not know what Nyayo, the Kiswahili word for footsteps meant and so they too assumed that it was one of president Moi’s names. In this case those growing up at that time thought the phrase Fuata  Nyayo meant that  we should follow the president ; and  thus the subsequent phrases like ‘Maziwa ya Nyayo’.

For the Maziwa ya Nyayo generation, it was a privilege to be called upon to sing songs of praise and dance for the president whenever he visited a town near us. During such visits, Moi was known to handout wads of cash to those who pleased him. To keep the indoctrination of his ideologies alive in schools, he would appear at different schools for harambees and give an amount of money that would leave everyone singing his praises. He also had the habit of naming schools after himself as a way of keeping his ideologies alive. Other than being a beneficiary of many packets of milk, i never met president Moi until when I was in form two. He came one day to my school and told us that he had decided to pop in since he was in the neighborhood visiting his farm. In his characteristic habit, he left us 25 thousand shillings to buy a bull and promised to come back over the next weekend with half a million as a contribution to an ongoing construction work. He dropped the money on the following Sunday evening and never heard from him again.

My generation grew up being trained to become complacent to everything happening around them. We learnt early in our lives that political survival was about either being a sycophant or just playing indifferent to what was happening around us. We did not benefit from the pleasures of cultivating free thoughts and opinions, because all we heard around us was either silence or blind worship of leaders. It was also indoctrinated to us that those who preached contrary thoughts were trouble makers who deserved severe punishment. Consequently some of the greatest anti-reformist atrocities like the death of Robert Ouko, the minister of foreign affair in 1990; the detention of political leaders, religious leaders, activists, students and any dissentful voices at the notorious torture Nyayo torture chambers; and the killing of Father Kaiser and Dr.Mbai among others happened when we were growing up. We have witnessed the rise of the prices of basic commodities throughout the years, seen grand acts of corruption by government officials and survived the 2007 post election violence. Though all this we have been reduced to opinion less adults who listen to populist politicians and field their opinion as ours.

We grew up being told that we are the leaders of tomorrow. Tomorrow is already here, but we are too timid to lay claim to leadership. We grew up with bad leaders as our role models and it’s true we do not want to be like them. But we also did not get the mentorship to be better leaders. We lack insights on the strategy to use for better leadership and those of us who have dared to lead have ended being swallowed up in the status quo. Others have been forced to bow to overwhelming patronage from the older politicians who in most cases end up financing their political campaigns. In the end they become stooges who represent the interests of their patrons rather than that of their constituents.

   Much us we appreciate the western ideals of democracy; we also recognize that democracy alone will not provide better leadership to us. Although democracy might be the better evil in governance, its success depend other factors like integrity, political will and a strategic drive and desire to really improve the social, political and economic state of our country. Where then can we seek guidance and confidence in becoming better leaders of today? How did the young twenty something year old leaders who took over the country after independence do it? Where did they get the confidence that they could steer the country to a better post-independence era. Is there something in the traditional African society we can borrow from? Was there a system or some sought of initiation talk that armed the young men and women with the confidence to take over leadership? Are there any old mentors out there who think they can pass over wisdom to young aspiring politicians without asking for blinding patronage in return?

Our history has taught us important lessons derived from the failure and successes of our past and present leaders. Technology has brought about different ways to achieve the same goal sometimes with increased efficiency. Education has armed us with ideological alternatives that we can adopt for better practices. Yet, generation Maziwa ya Nyayo still seems indifferent to politics. Most individuals in their 20s and thirties have publicly dismissed politics on their face book profiles. Such young people feel like it is not their business to engage in politics either as a voter or as a political contestant. Unfortunately, this generation makes up a large block of Kenya’s population. The positive implication of this is that we can use our votes to change the way politics are being ran in our country. We can actually field our own candidates and with or without money mobilize fellow youths to vote for them. The beauty of this is that we would act as very active public watch dogs of the people we elected to represent us in any capacity.

In the next ten to twenty years, the generation after us will be laying claim to leadership. Are we going to ape our current octogenarian politicians and refuse to hand over power because we want to be leaders for life? The 90s generation (also called generation Y) has been a big beneficiary of reforms and the growth of democracy in Kenya. They are therefore independent minded and daring go getters who will stop at nothing in the achievement of their dreams. They are establishing growing careers in the creative industry, Communication and information technology and other areas that were traditionally undermined. If we don’t do something about taking over leadership, our generation might just never get to taste governance in Kenya. Generation Y seem more ready than us. We need to shed the cap of sycophancy we adopted during Moi’s era and do away with the indifference borne out of our disappointment in the current leadership. Let us should use our numbers, historical lessons, technology, wise traditional counsel and the support our constitution which empowers us to vie for any position, to stand up and get counted as leaders of today. Let us be the champions of the third liberation; liberation from impunity. Aluta Continua!!