How a wise Kenyan Should Think about Uhuru and Raila

A letter from a concerned youth to the Kenyan people

Dear fellow Kenyans, this letter comes to you from a fellow Kenyan, a youth who believes that we as a people need to style up before we put our blames on the leaders. This is because we have never given them any unified vision or manifesto as a nation; our politics have always encouraged tribalism and gluttony with the results being division and corruption which are mother and father of poverty in this nation.
For instance, we as the youth of Kenya have never even thought of coming together with a vision geared to solving unemployment and serving it as a signed petition for the government to implement. We are just waiting each time to vote and give few people resources and power without ever wanting to show them how we want them to use those resources and powers, we back off and let them run the nation as they wish once they are elected, then we start complaining.
Below is an example of a petition I would expect the Kenyan youth to draw for the nation some day, something that would show that they are prepared to walk the talk in finding solutions. Something would show they are ready to unite and serve each other for the benefit of all, a petition that would show they are ready for positive change and visionary leadership. It has to start with the people, they have to desire it well enough and express it logically, peacefully, knowledgeably and effectively with precision. Then we can get the results we need, only if we put in the right effort in the right way.
Example of an effective petition by the Kenyan Youth to the EACC and NCIC
“We the Kenyan youth petition the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to lias with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission to facilitate establishment of skill centers in every ward in the country. The two commissions should do this in the spirit of performing their legal duties for the nation by considering the following reasons:
If we must talk of good governance we have to be committed to good governance. We demand that they show their commitment to good governance through this.
Corruption and lack of cohesion are just as a result of poor governance and lack of good management of available resources. The main reason why we suffer is not because we do not have the necessary resources for development but because we have failed to optimally exploit all the available resources, and where we exploited them we have not shared them in a just manner because the governance allowed injustices like corruption and tribalism to rob some and give others more than they need in exploitative ways.
In addition, the main reason we need this skills centers is because the winning strategy for African entrepreneurship must just include making good use of the African Communal bond to eradicate extreme poverty. We have to get everyone burning with the passion to fight a winning war against poverty, and this can only work by providing a system that technically brings us together for that purpose, eradicating extreme poverty. The centers should be at the grass root level and should include everybody.
The economic boom of Europe during Renaissance was a result of individuals bringing resources together to build companies and businesses like the East India Company, a company which ended up shaking the world with economic power.
The most undoing phenomena in the fight against poverty is the individualistic approach to entrepreneurship and the slow take off pace of social entrepreneurship. A hundred people might struggle selling oranges in a market for 20 years, competing each other, without ever considering the possibility of working as a team and the benefits it would bring.
Social entrepreneurship could be the answer to eradicating extreme poverty in Africa, but it can only thrive in the right environment that is inclusive and supportive. It must therefore be corruption free, vigilant and cohesive in a transparent manner. We can know that we are ready to take off from poverty when we establish such institutions; otherwise we can confidently say that we have chosen to stay in poverty by blaming everything else yet we are avoiding the crucial thing which is creating the right environment for wealth creation right from the grass root level.
We have to note that about 70 percent of the American GDP comes from people with small businesses; the trend is the same in other fully industrialized countries like, France, Italy and the other G8 countries. This tells us, the wealth of our nation is lying idle in the unemployed Kenyans with businesses ideas, capabilities and untapped potentials who would be businesses owners if they were given the right environment.  We have to create an encouraging and supportive environment for them to come out and train in their various trades, after which we should give them a chance to raise funds using the communal bonding and exploit their ideas and visions.
We therefore need centers of management at the local level that cannot be shaken  by bad politics, corruption and poor governance, so that we as the youth can get the confidence of investing our strength and even financial resources in these institutions in an effort to restore sanity to our nation by first creating employment for ourselves by giving each Kenyan a chance to be creative, giving him access to mentorship to come up with social enterprises that will transform the nation at the grass root level and create equality by narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.
We want to be given a chance to eradicate extreme poverty through these institutions which must therefore be corruption free and supportive to our aspirations at the grass root level and offer mentorship services to the youth so that we can come together in unity through them to build our nation, that is why the institutions must be cohesively run by the EACC and NCIC both which address the issues of corruption and injustices in the nation in order to build sanity.
For example if every young Kenyan decided to give around 50 shillings every week towards a development project by the youth for the youth, that money will be around 1 billion every week, this is because 2 thirds of the 45 million Kenyan population are the youth, that will mean that if only half of them give out Shs 50, it will be Shs 50 by 20 million people which equals one billion.  It is only 50 shillings in the pocket of an individual, but when 20 million of us come together, it is 1 billion. These are the resources we continue to waste each day in betting, alcohol and other wasteful habits because it is only 50 shillings. Even if we were just contributing one shilling each in a day it would amount to millions of shillings.
This money can help to create industries and jobs for us. What am saying is that as the youth we are ready to come together, pool together our resources and contribute in development but lack of cohesiveness and integrity in governance is hindering us. That is why we petition the EACC and NCIC to team up and remove these hindrances through the good governance of the skills centers which should act as platforms of bringing us together to cohesively work towards building our nation.
As youth we would like to be able to draft our own projects, look for funding to support these projects at the local and national level majorly to create industries and jobs, but we need a corruption free and cohesive environment right from the grass root.
We demand that these centers should actively engage in providing technical training and creating direct employment to about a third of the unemployed Kenyans in every ward in an effort to provide good governance of the available resources which include labor. The human resource is the major resource we have in Kenya, and we demand to see good management of this resource so that no talents are wasted, no good ideas should be mishandled and the efforts put in place by people through work and financial resources must be fully accounted for.
We the youth want to take our rightful place in development and that must be in a corruption free and cohesive environment where every of our efforts will be put to good use of benefitting each one of us. We don’t want to be wasted anymore and we demand to be given a chance to be busy building ourselves and our nation instead of being forced to play bad politics. The youth engage bad politics because there are no sufficient centers and systems to engage them usefully. This need must therefore be prioritized; it is the gateway to peace, stability, cohesion, good integration and eventually prosperity of the low level Kenyan which is crucial towards eradicating corruption.
We demand that the centers act as a point of contact for the Commissions to directly influence the way public funds are handled at the ward level by enhancing justice, transparency and good will by working together with the people and promoting social integration and interaction at the grass root level by responding to the needs and aspirations of the people
This is because the two Commissions are mandated with the duty of creating a peaceful, cohesive environment and eradicating Corruption in the country, and for them to excel at this task, patriotism and brotherhood must be revived through caring for the basic needs of the people without which people are likely to disagree and be susceptible to corruption, it is hard for a people to be patriotic towards a government and its institutions if it takes the aspirations of the people for granted.
Creating employment and bringing people together at the grass root level to engage in activities that will benefit them and provide an answer to their immediate needs through these institutions is the way we need to go in order to remain united, cohesive, and peaceful with integrity and sound moral obligation that arises from patriotism.
What we are saying is that through these institutions the leadership should give us a reason to unite, work together cohesively and abhor corruption by showing us that corruption can indeed be eradicated, if the two Commissions can create corruption free and cohesive environments in these institutions, our confidence will be high that they will instill integrity and inject patriotism in the government institutions. It will be a major milestone towards successful social entrepreneurship and a good sign of speedy development like has never been expected before.
To protect the state, leaders must have a vision of the kind of institutions they want in this state, as the youth we have decided that the skill centers are the kind of institutions we want and we are ready to grow them through high levels of integrity to institutions that will bear the mandate of giving the people a chance to embrace patriotism, cohesion, unity, creativity and hard work for the attainment of the national vision of equality and decent life for every single Kenyan.
Corruption denies people justice by taking from them their right to enjoy decent lives and live up to their life aspirations, yet fighting corruption without building working, corruption free institutions that offer real solutions is like fighting an imaginary enemy.
The more institutions we build that are corruption free and cohesive, the more we push out corruption and indifference out of our society.
Kenya, with corruption can be likened to a bucket with dirty water, this bucket cannot be emptied at once in order to be filled with clean water since all systems will collapse, but if we can take the bucket to a tap and begin filling it with clean water, new clean systems will be introduced and dirty water which are corrupt systems will slowly begin to be overwhelmed and flow out, with time, we shall have all clean and only clean institutions.
Our dream is for a Kenya where every Kenyan takes responsibility for the development of his nation, a Kenya where two thirds of the 45 million Kenyans can raise even ten billion in a week and put it in a development project without losing even a single shilling to corruption and reaping the benefits equitably.  This is the Kenya that anyone including the international Community will be more than willing to help where they come short of attaining their goals, a people that show the right effort and commitment.
The best way to fight corruption is by first preventing it from happening and for this to happen the ethics and anti-Corruption commission must actively work cohesively with the people in an inclusive corruption free environment;
To create an avenue for meeting the aspirations of the people at the grass root level cohesively
This is because most of the cases of corruption and violence happen due to the negligence of the aspirations of the people, where the institutions like EACC and NICC want the people to be cohesive and corruption free without them being cohesive with the needs and aspirations of the people and helping them deal with the real challenges that are making them to disagree and become susceptible to corruption at the grass root level hence giving them a feeling of alienation that breeds a sense of  vulnerability and the need for them to be introversive and defensive against government systems leading to lack of patriotism, they begin only to care about their own needs because nobody cares for them, thus breeding selfishness. In the long run they also develop the attitude of exploitation because they have been exploited and do not see a window for justice. This makes the country to be continually susceptible to corruption and violence because our systems breed corrupt individuals with the idea that this is the only way for people to reach their life aspirations because justice has failed. This environment is not good for development and entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship

We therefore need continuous and intimate mentorship at the grass root level to reassure Kenyans that they can still be selfless, patriotic and human and still be successful in Kenya, and this must be something tangingle, technical and inclusive that delivers the required results.

Apart from being solution brewers, the skill centers will also act as centers of research on the aspirations of the people and how the state and its leadership can help the people reach their goals in the right legal way.
This is should happen in an effort to facilitate inclusivity starting from the grass root level to develop cohesion, rule out corruption and speed up industrialization.

We want to create jobs for ourselves and come out of streets into industries, we have the resources and minds to do this, we are willing to do this but our government and institutions must remove the impediments of corruption and lack of cohesiveness and division which is majorly being backed by the political class in the country, we want to have at least one corruption free, cohesive, transparent institution that promises to solve the menace of unemployment by teaming up with people at the grass root level, to discuss solutions and work them out right there.

With these reasons we demand Skill Centers to be made priority in the development agenda of Kenya, these centers should also be run through the two independent and non-political institutions of EACC and NICC.
We also demand that the skill centers be equipped with production equipment where those who graduate from the centers can immediately engage in production of services and goods for which they have trained to avoid wastage of manpower.
The skill centers should have a tally and data center of the employment status of every single individual in the ward to keep truck of development of every individual to ensure nobody is left behind.
We demand that the centers be able to accommodate at least a third of unemployed members of the ward and should focus on a variety of productive skills and talents ranging from the music industry, sports like football to engineering courses geared to production of finished goods. The unemployment statistics should therefore be looked at from the grass root level, at the ward level to know how many are unemployed and keep track of what is being done to employ them.
This is majorly because there is need to step up the quality of education to align it with the market needs and to keep the growth engine running, driven by innovation.
The main purpose of these centers will be grass root research on the kinds of goods and services in demand within the country, in the region and internationally, then it will be the task of the government through these institutions to equip the people for these ripe opportunity so as to create a relevant, skilled and dynamic labor force that produces the goods and services that are undeniably on high demand."

My view on Development
For years we thought that the leadership of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was the problem. When Moi came to power, we again complained about his leadership too.
The same thing happened again in 2002, almost the whole country said Kibaki Tosha in 2002, five years later we still felt that he had not done the country justice and we had a tough competition between him and Raila that resulted in the 2007 post election violence.
Could it be that we the people of Kenya are the problem and not the leaders we choose? Could it be that we are the ones failing our leaders and then being the first to complain against them? Could it be our culture is what is causing us to spoil good members of society by turning them into gluttons because we give them a lot of resources and powers with not particular vision, direction, guidance and purpose? Is it because we are not united enough to give them a command, because in a democracy the people command the leadership on what they want, they give direction?
 Since we chose democracy, we have to know that in democracy it is the people who decide where they want to go through a vision and if they cannot organize themselves to align each other towards a good direction, even those chosen cannot have an easy job of leading them because the people themselves tie each other’s hands and they do not know where they want to go, making it very hard for any leader to give them direction. A people without a vision are hard to lead, and in a democracy the vision should be held by the people and imposed on the leaders and not vice versa.
 It would be inapt for us to continue doing the same thing every time, putting our faith in bad tribal politics and individualism which breeds gluttons and expect the different results from them, when we can unite to put our faith in agreement with God and demand that whichever government we get should give us the kind of development we want, through using our knowledge and understanding of the constitution and putting to practice our rights. We have to wake up and demand for our rights in a knowledgeable and peaceful way, lawfully, and in the process we should guide our leaders continually on what we want as a people, through a unified vision and knowing what we collectively want as a people.
This is because governments work by law and not just favors. It is our duty as Kenyans to practice the constitution in such a way that even the poorest gets a fair share of the resources of the country and that will happen if we pick up the habit of unity. In democracy, it is the duty of the people to unite and have a unified vision for their country; a vision which they feed to the leaders, if this does not happen, the country  will lack direction and democracy fails, then the same people will pick on a leader to blame.
The power of change in a democracy is entrusted to the people who must have a clear vision, election is just a way of employing members of a democracy to go and serve a vision which a nation uniformly stands for, what do we expect then if we continually elect leaders without first standing in unity and agreeing on what kind of vision we should commit them to work for.
 If we don’t want the scenario of the blind leading the blind in Kenya we must develop the culture of drawing a national manifesto or vision and look for the best candidates who can implement those manifestos, right from the ward level to the presidential level, these is because we all have aspirations and we must sit down and draw visions and a plan for these aspirations right from the lowest level.
My point is that we should check ourselves, if we still continue to shy away from practicing our democratic duties of uniting in one vision how do we expect others to lead us well, we may end up getting the same results each time and being duped every now and then if we do not take the right initiative. We have to rectify first, and that has to happen very fast because leadership in the country needs a unified voice of vision to restore sanity.
These is not a petition I write to the government now, but it is an example of a petition I wish the Kenyan youth can agree on , refine and present for whichever government they get. The centers at the ward level can then be the basic manufacturers of vision.
This is the view I believe the youth should take on Development.
Sincerely,
A concerned Kenyan Youth to the Kenyans.

Follow the link below to begin taking action.
http://gopetition.com/petitions/petition-for-skill-centers-in-every-ward-in-kenya.html