This year
being an election year in Kenya, or so we thought, most homesteads find
themselves watching and listening to the various political aspirants each and
every evening thanks to our media houses. News time has turned out to be
campaign time for the political aspirants as each scrambles to present the best
of him or her. I would like to call this, “home-screen campaigning” because I
have realized that most Kenyans tend to actually make the decision of who their
candidate of choice is on what they saw or heard in the media. It must be known
to our aspirants that their presence or absence in the media contributes a lot
to the voter’s decision.
After a few observations that I made in our
own home and even when I visiting at a friend, I realized that a political talk
always came up during or after the news especially news on politics and it is
at this point that you hear people give their honest opinion of so and so. They
open up to a point I always wish as Kenyans we would do it more often and publicly;
there is so much honesty in their talk as they try to hold accountable most of
these leaders especially those who have been serving in one public office or
the other. I wish the political aspirants would listen to this. Sometimes
however, this talk changes face and becomes a campaign time even within the
house as different family members campaign for their candidate of choice. This
is particularly so in my parents’ house thanks to my own father who tends to think
that the political party he supports can never be at fault ( I pray he never
reads this article, and if he does let it be next year on the condition that
probably his choice leads).
It is in
line with this that the other day when a friend of mine and I were watching
seven O’clock news, and as usual political rallies across the country were
being aired, her candidate of choice among the presidential aspirants happened
to be aired. And of course she had to say something, “…is the person I will
vote for…” ,funny enough this particular candidate happened to be one of my favorites
whom I think at the end of the day will carry my vote, and yes I affirmed her
choice by saying, “me too”. Her next sentence is what got me thinking, this is
what she said, “Nemaaketing…” that is to say “you will be killed by…” in an
ironical way. What she actually meant was that I would get myself killed literary
in reference to my father if he found out my choice of candidate.
This may keep you wondering what percentage of
my life my father is part of and why I cannot make my own decisions without him
feeling betrayed, but this is how majority of us humans behave. We seek to
please the people we know are linked to us in one way or another. We support a
political aspirant not because of the track record of his/her work, neither
his/her portfolio nor even by following our own conscience because of how
promising a leader to be is but because he/she is one of our own, or because we
know that we will directly or indirectly benefit from him or her forgetting
that he/she is suppose to serve all Kenyans and not just a particular
individual.
We are the
ones who lure our own leaders into retreating back to their tribal cocoons and
if not so they move with a particular group of friends who “have been there for
him or her”. At the end of the day, when one aspirant takes the lead, we become
the first to point fingers of how tribal he/she is never posing to think of how
the situation would be if our candidate was the one leading. Would things be
different or will it be just the other way round?
I long for
the day when Kenya would not elect a leader because of their attachment or
popularity but because it is purely based on merit, a day when a leader would
become a leader because he/she is the right person for the job and there will
be no political affiliations but pure democracy. The choice remains with you
and me. Kenyans are the determiners of which direction their politics will take
whichever choice we make and we can rest assured that at the end of the day we
will be where we have chosen to go. Choose today where you want Kenya to be
tomorrow.
