POLITICS: WHERE 'EATING' COUNTS AS VIRTUE

By Adero Ken

Here, a brief back-to-class moment. Politics 101 is about who decides who gets what, how and when. The “ who decides” is entrusted to a group of individuals through periodic competitive elections which then forms the government to adjudicate for all citizens on “who gets what, when and how”. The “who decides” are just some of us picked or elected and trusted with managing our “what” in a process of “how and when”.
We call the “who decides” politicians for the sake of it, just like we give individual names to cows in a kraal. The names never stop the cow from being a cow just because of the name. Hence politicians are ordinary folks privileged with responsibilities.
Politicians are not replicas that reflect the best in us, but are customarily expected to mirror our best interests because of the assigned job. Because we all can’t sit at the same time and place and decide, we elect and pay a few to do it on our behalf.
The “what” are the national resources owned by all of us, the citizenry? To ensure each of our shares is accounted for and gets value, we have instructions to guide politicians, and this is the constitution and laws that forbid theft and discrimination in access to resources.
So, politics is a hard act, an onerous task and high calling that demands integrity and responsiveness. Ideally, politics should not be for CONMEN and the ARROGANT, but for the wise sages of all ages and gender committed to destiny of all.
Now if the above is what we know and want, then the Kenyan dose of politics and politicians is a slight on the conscience of the nation. The typical Kenyan politician seeks office without knowing what the job or post entails but views it as an opportunity to make deals and ‘eat’. They cheat their way up, engage in trivia and break the law with impunity in the name of politics.
Once installed as politicians, miscreants threaded to lies and theft has no sense of proportionality they crave dotage, extortion and bribes. So acrimonious is the fact that they eat from us, eat on our behalf and even wants to eat us but we just keep and maintain nonchalant attitude; that is the tragedy of Kenyan politics, people steal at a high rate till you wonder whether the future generation will have something to eat and enjoy.
It is high time all and sundry realized that any form of leadership is about people’s lives. It must never be a sort of experiment or an adventure meant to satisfy individual ego or self-preservation. So if you decide to take up a position of leadership, you must carry along the consciousness that constantly reminds you that a small misstep may cause a group or whole populations lose opportunity that results to ruin many lives.
We the people must also think beyond our noses and elect leaders based on merit and nothing less than that. Let us not elect rapacious individuals who are clueless on matters leadership as a bat night and those who are anti-development. Most importantly, let’s try and move away from enthnicon of politics but instead move towards issue- based politics if at all we want to end the endemic corruption and other challenges that bedevil our great country.