President Uhuru Kenyatta thinks that we need to tinker with our governance and deal with our institutions to work towards achieving the dreams of our founding fathers.
But I think what has bedevilled our road towards that vision is a bad political culture, entrenchment of a system that has no national values and lack of the rule of law. All these have resulted in rampant corruption, impunity and desperate citizens emulating criminals and political crooks in the hope they too will not be prosecuted.
I agree with Kenyatta that we need to re-examine our governance architecture through reforms and the Constitution so it remains responsive to our needs.
The biggest assignment that he has, and he must lead from the front for the remainder of his term, is a value-based leadership.
Reengineer the Kenyan culture so that we don’t have traffic hams caused by indiscipline and pig-headedness on our road. This will ensure traffic cops are deployed to patrol the streets and to root out crime. Traffic lights should be left to do their job.
I think the President has to lead by example and drive this country towards value based system and a culture of good manners.
He must show that he does not tolerate graft by massive arrests of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
Look at National Youth Service, for example, where money was being carried away in sacks. That was not even corruption, corruption is something more sophisticated. That was crude daytime robbery.
We talk of institutions, yes, do it but work on the people. If we renovate the system without changing how the people think, we will still not succeed.
Kenyatta needs to look but and see how he abandoned Kanu and formed TNA, how he established Jubilee and how he is seeking to change the law.
We have a poor political culture, we lost the 1991 opportunity, we changed the law but we didn’t work on the culture.
What is his investment in the people to have a value-based system? Kenyatta has not yet decided to gazette judges who were duly and procedurally appointed.
Change of instruments that bind our nation needs further rethink.
Center for Multi-party Democracy (CMD) Executive Director spoke to the Star