The great Kenyan economist David Ndii and the founder of the Kenya Revolutionary Front (KRF) Miguna Miguna agree that it is time for regime change or protests to force the Kenyan regime to change its course.
The conversation
David Ndii: Dear #Uthamakistan
I said we are over borrowing, you said no pain no gain. I said SGR is not value for money, you said I’m anti-development. I said we prioritize agriculture productivity, you said stadiums. Now you turn around and demand I give solutions. Sasa. mnataka . nifanye . nini?
A Kenyan: You may have good intentions, but until you prove you can turnaround the economy, criticism may not help us. Use your closeness to Baba to influence the planning and economics policy that can atleast halt the free fall.
David Ndii: You aren’t hearing me. You didn’t listen when turnaround was possible. We passed tipping point about a year ago. Now its either Ethiopia (regime change) or Sudan (revolution) scenario. I advised Raila not to jump into sinking ship, he disagreed. Choices. Consequences.
Miguna Miguna: I strongly urged you to support the revolution we were mobilizing for from Nov. 2017 to Feb. 2018 but you said that Miguna was too radical and wanted power. You appeared with Raphael Tuju on TV to lend support to Raila’s HandChieth with Despot Uhuru. Welcome to the revolution.
There’s no doubt Kenya has been mismanaged yet Kenyans are not reading the script quite well.
We have been dampened by the secretive operations of the vestiges of Cambridge Analytica, media houses which are at the mercy of the government, driving the government agenda so as to earn the revenue for its people. They continue doing this to stay afloat but still sack staff while complaining abut harsh economic conditions.
We have failed to see and dream of better days, that those better days, we have the power in our hands to make them.
How do you explain, 7 trillion shillings used between 2013 and 2019 that has not had any impact, economically on the lives of people? The owners of capital have sabotaged any projects that can benefit the public and directed those monies to improve their businesses. How do you explain the rationale behind the Nairobi Suswa Railway line?
Your president with a whiff of hand (mnanisumbua) said that in 20 years time, most people will be living in Suswa and not Nairobi. There he said it: The grand plan of the Kenyattas is to have Nairobi as a very uninhabitable place while building a habitable Northlands City and without any plans saying that Suswa, which will now be captured by property firms as the next big thing. For all i know, Suswa will be filled with slums in the next 10 years. Nairobi will be ungovernable. Watch as the ‘Nairobi Business Community’ will be unleashed on you.
The Kenyattas plans have always been myopic, devoid of future outlook or taking into account history whether recent (Gadaffi) or ancient (Marie–Antoinette).
Kenyans are busy on powerful platforms like Facebook sharing nudes and speaking about relationship, the same things preached on radios by deranged and depressed drug sniffing presenters, instead of holding serious talks about social and economic decline across all platforms.
We are doomed if we continue in this path of foolish tranquility amidst turmoil.
Where can we start?
A farmer in Eldoret gave us a hint last year: ‘heri Kukufa kuliko kuishi kenya’, he thundered
The man continued, ‘nchi haiwezi endeshwa namna hii,’ hata nyumba yako haiwezi endeshwa namna hii.
He was referring to the sidelining of the maize farmers by the govt and owners of capital who see it fit to import rotten maize from Mexico instead of Rift Valley farmers.
Kenyan leaders have lost all humanity in the treatment of their fellows, and now that Luos, the defenders of the Kenyan goodwill have joined the government and it seems Luos were the only true opposition causing sleepless nights to the looters, because no other tribe or formation has come up to effectively condemn the corruption in government.
The other formidable opponents to Muigai’s thievery is a small online community this blog included, an exiled lawyer Miguna and a witty Economist David Ndii.
Some say, there’s nothing one woman or one man can accomplish against the enormous arrays of the world’s ills, but change has come to this world by the action of one man.
History is replete with one person who said, NO!, to the powers that be and then ripple of change swept across regions.
One Tunisian in 2011, said no to their Kanjo, staged a fiery protest by dousing himself with fire and lighting a match, and soon a dictator who has survived for long; along with many other were ousted and that at least brought change.
Kenyans are very sharp people and we know that some of them fear the threat of falling into chaos like Libya and Somalia, if ever a people revolution removed the dynasties from power. However, that is not always the case, Kenya cannot be allowed to fall that way because of the massive investments the west has done here.
But even though it’ll be left to fall into the abyss, following protests and revolutions, then that is it. That is the price some people have paid for change.
The thing is this, there’s no sense of national pride in Kenyans, they simply understand one language, ‘ grab and take’
This is why it is hard to upset the apple cart of economic marginalization and oppression.
The people are so focused on doing anything including licking each others ass so as to see the next day.
I predict that it will take a long time before Kenyans finally see themselves as humans deserving of respect, good treatment and better living conditions.
As for now, Kenyattas are consolidating their ownership of the slave farm, aided by Chinese and Indians.
The end
In Kenya, we can listen to the good advice, though it is a great challenge to discuss ideas on how to be govern a great multitude, diverse nations; the Kenyan populace, under one state.
It is not a fact that power must be taken first and then the constitution followed. We must demand that the constitution be followed now. If not, then action must be taken against the regime that doesn’t follow the constitution.
It is the government that needs to provide for its people. All people must be able to get good, education, healthcare and security.
If you find yourselves waiting on politicians to do things such as pay your school fees, help you send your kids to school, give you money to pay your hospital bill, bring relief food, then things are not right and this is not how a government should be and this is not how people should live.
Our constitution embodies the idea of community (public) participation to decide on projects that are to be undertaken by the government in any level.
This if followed can be a great, transformative thing.
Demand today that the constitution be followed.
Revolutions are bloody, so it is well to ask, ‘do I live this life of half-freedom and lack all my life?
Is this life okay with all the facets of my consciousness?
Is there a way I can change it?
If one is okay with oppression, suffering and lack (most don’t know that this is abnormal thing), then continue living your life.
However, if you chose to stand for a better society, knowing too well that you might pay with your life, but having the conviction of a greater future for the others to come after you, then, this is the spirit of humanity.
The educator, Paolo Freire, advises that in the attempt at humanising ourselves, we are also humanising the oppressors, for in their (oppressors) dehumanization efforts, they have also dehumanized themselves.
[see, a simple example of how detachment in consciousness occurs is when you have eaten your food and you are full, it is not easy to think that others in another part of the world are hungry, cannot afford to buy food. This is how Kenyan leaders are. We are not on the same level of thought or feelings. And that’s why Freire argues humanisation.]
In their dehumanized forms, they thrive by passing communiques and slogans that are irrelevant and unawakening. They ride on our ignorance to dehumanize us and oppress us further.
So, the task of the revolutionary, who mostly, must come from the side of the oppressed, must be to undertake that great task above; to humanize.
What would you want to change?
Fellow Kenyans, you need to demand for proper governance that embodies transparency, morality and above all humanity. (It is inhuman to be unemployed in the vast wealth of the world, to be hungry, to be untreated at the hospital because you lack money)
Money is being looted everyday. What are you gonna do to these looting leaders?, let them steal some more because they have been offering you some crumbs (little money) and you think that is normal?
It is not normal to be having a lot, while your neighbor has nothing; it is not normal to laugh or feel great because you have and another person doesn’t have.
The constitution of Kenya Chapter 6 on integrity must be followed. Out revolution must start by eating the money from looters during campaigns and voting for the best and unknown candidate. It takes time to train a person to be a thief. I posit. But if this fails to rid us of thieves. I think moving to the streets to paralise government business is okay.
In Burkina Faso, the people burned parliament.
In Ukraine, the people invaded state house.
In Russia, the people killed the royal family (the Tsar).
In Sudan, the people had a sit-in at the army headquarters for days’ and some change happened.
In Algeria, the people refused that only the president resigns, they know too well how the system must be cleaned inside out.
In early 90s, the people of Romania killed their dictator prime minister on the streets.
It is well to fire a warning shot, even if it is just a warning shot as the people of Ukraine dumped the Member of Parliament in garbage bins in 2014.
Perhaps it would be justice for the suffering many, the hungry many, the dying masses to hang looters of big money and reform small thieves.
Education system must change. From serving the colonialists by deeming our capacity to think to being a society that is fully capable of having discourse on anything, to think about how things can be done on everyone’s’ locality.
Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) that is now being peddled to Kenyans has alot of shortcomings, it is the colonialists tool of suppression.
Let’s change Kenya for the better, let’s think about how things can be done on everyone’s’ locality.
In short, we need a government of the people, by the people, for the people. A true one for that matter.
WE CAN THINK FOR OURSELVES.
We need true discourse be carried out on what we want. For example, what a Turkana wants might not be tarmacked roads, but that Galana Kulalu, Trans Nzoia Maize farms and irrigation schemes in region that work.
A Kalenjin farmer highest need might not be that you only build milk factories or silos and let the maize rot in them, but that you make and sign contracts that you abide with as a government.
A Luo fisherman want is not that you import fish and sell in Kisumu but that you have better markets and transport systems and value addition to the fish they labour so hard to catch from Lake Victoria amidst extortion from Kenya and Uganda Police.
Let me stop, because if i continue in this fashion, then i run the risk of talking like the oppressor. See, the oppressor sits in his bedroom and comes up with ideas on what people want, even without asking the people. This is SHAMEFUL! People must be asked what they want. And this must not be rushed, it must be engaging and long!. Guided peacefully and carefully by people who are humane.
What one wants is not what the other wants.
The needs of people in different places, regions, locality differ.
But what is the best generally?
How do we know this? Answer: By talking to people, understanding their needs and then executing.
Finally, in the constitution, some of these things don’t even need to change, they just need to be followed.
Danger to be aware of
We’ve had best laws, policies and intentions on paper. However, these are often hijacked by special interests groups; mostly fronted by our oppressors and their masters in the west.
Our leaders, the dynasties we have are oppressive, their master, the western countries and their religion of white supremacy can be defeated.
Let’s start by loving ourselves, let’s regain our humanity.
The challenges seem insurmountable, but they can be defeated.
As Robert Kennedy told the Students in South Africa in their day of affirmation.
There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.
Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man.
These students joined the movement to bring down apartheid and apartheid fell!.
We get to know that Thomas Sankara transformed Burkina Faso in 5 years. We get to see that Muammar Gadaffi (though his is not a perfect story) transformed Libya and greatly improved the living standards of people in that country.
Were it not for the action of one woman, Wangari Maathai, then we wouldn’t be having Uhuru Park, the open spaces that we enjoy sitting in in Nairobi, lamenting about our unemployment and misery.
The expressway shouldn’t psss through Uhuru Park.
Someone bomb something. (I remember some US nationals when they thought the Govt was too much on unnecessary things, they bombed govt buildings)
Change starts with one person. Believe it is you today and dare to dream.
These men moved the world, and so can we all.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today.
NOTE:
Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, owing to the pressure by the masses, stepped down in early April.
The butcher of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, owing to the pressure of the masses, stepped down in Sudan.
In Tunisia, the revolution continues.
Nothing is impossible!
