It’s time to shed off the old skin
Around this time of the calendar, it is customary to make New Year resolutions that are destined to be broken as soon as the following day –in this case, tomorrow, Monday the second day of the year – but this has never stopped those who believe in such things. And actually, there’s no harm in making such resolutions.
All wishes are valid so long as they are legitimate and harm no one else, which is why re-inventing yourself periodically helps you to catch up with the rest of humanity and indeed, makes you human.
It also explains why snakes and a few other species periodically shed their skins as a way of renewal. But since we do not have the specific privilege enjoyed only by the lower creatures, we make New Year resolutions, and many of us leave it at that.
Unfortunately, identifying bad habits and resolving to overcome them is easier said than done. Old habits do, indeed, die hard and it takes a great deal of willpower, for instance, to give up anything you are used to unless a doctor orders you to give it up if you want to live. Thankfully, for most people, the choices are rarely ever that stark.
Community level
However, things should be different at the community level; there are things that we believe in as a society that should be immediately shed for the public good; patterns of behaviour and practices that are inimical to the well-being of the country. In short, there are things that define who we are as a nation and a number of them are not very uplifting.
For instance, during every election, there are always winners and losers, but in our case, it is rare to accept defeat with the requisite grace. This is because, on the whole, elections are murky affairs and it is not always easy to know who actually won and who stole votes.
What is peculiar about Kenya is that rarely do the losers acknowledge that they bungled somewhere, or that they were outsmarted and the numbers projected had no relationship with reality. As a result, people waste too much time bickering and buck-passing instead of going into deep introspection to find out what went wrong and how they, individually and collectively, contributed to the debacle.
It is time we realised that once a president and his deputy are sworn in and a new government is formed, no amount of whining or gnashing of teeth is going to make any difference. After the initial shock caused by loss, deserved or otherwise, the losers should just pipe down and start re-strategising for the future.
Another habit that is grating on the nerves is the one of hoping loudly, especially on social media, that the government fails. Nobody in his right mind would wish this to happen for, in the end, the real losers will be the governed.
So we might just as well support the government because right now, there is no other waiting in the wings. This does not, of course, mean that it should be given a free pass; the opposition has the civic duty of holding the Executive to account in all instances.
The other thing that we must do going forward is to give those elected into office as county heads a chance to govern.
I don’t know Governor Kawira Mwangaza from Eve, and I am not holding brief for her, but the reasons why the Meru County Assembly are trying to get rid of her seem to be flimsy to the extreme. The lady has been in office for less than five months, and the only conclusion one can make is that the MCAs cannot see themselves being ruled by a woman. However, the fact that the most vociferous critics have been women MCAs means that die-hard male chauvinism is not the issue: something else must be at play.
Whatever the case, it is good that the Senate has saved many a governor at the crosshairs of their MCAs because they refused to cooperate in robbing taxpayers. Indeed, of the seven governors impeached since 2016, only two lost their seats –Nairobi’s Mike Sonko and Kiambu’s Ferdinand Waititu. The rest were saved by the Senate or the courts.
Hostile assembly
In the meantime, it is not clear how, even if she survives the ouster, Ms Mwangaza will govern with such a hostile assembly. If I were in her shoes, I would make a beeline for State House while rehearsing the hustler narrative until I get it right. This is no longer a country for independent women.
Oh, I nearly forgot one more peeve—revisionist history. A tired old saying attributed to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill goes that history is written by the victors. This may, indeed, be true, but one would wish our leaders stopped hearkening to the past too often; it is becoming quite tiresome.
One would expect some form of magnanimity from the election winners, but that does not seem to be happening, and Kenyans have too much in their minds without being constantly reminded of the past government’s failures. BY DAILY NATION
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