In 2027 Decision Kenyans will have alternative: Choice Between Politicians and Professionals
Like it or not, the race to the house in the hill 2027 has begun and GEN Z Revolution has complicated it so it is not going to be be business as usual. Its Raila who always say, “Farasi ni wawili”, Kalonzo declared it last year that it will be a two-horse race between him and the incumbent, President William Ruto.
However, the feeling on the ground is very different this time. I did a content analysis of Space Discussions by the GEN Zs, most of the whatsapp groups and listened to several conversations in bus stops, boda boda stages, markets, churches, bunge la wanainchi, public service vehicles, uber and boda boda rides that I have been using deliberately to collect views and my findings would shock politicians, “kwa ground vitu ni different”, on the ground things are different. in fact the Revolution I am talking about is from Space to Place, cyberrevolution that will affect polling going by the fact that a whole President has to meet anonymous team on Twitter Space and be told on his face what he wouldnt want to hear. In fact, if the heckling during Kenya Kwanza rallies whereby the President had to be exited from behind the tent abandoning the red carpet is anything to go by, its clear the revolution has happned.
In the dawn of the GEN Z revolution, Kenyans are mostly saying that the country’s economy is too serious an issue to be left in the hands of politicians any longer. They want the country to be run by Professionals, probably due to how they have watched Kenyan Kwanza run down the Economy.
The current call by Dialogue to solve a problem which is majorly economic tells you that there is a crisis of leadership and this crisis can only be solved by a visionary leader not dialogue as Raila and Ruto thinks.
The Asian Tigers like Singapore needed no dialogue but got a visionary leader like Lee Kuan Yew. I was surprised when I gave a talk to young business professionals about Purposeful leadership as a solution to the leadership crisis and one lady in her early twenties but seem to have raced too fast to key managerial position told me that with how Kenya Kwanza is mismanaging the country, she has realised that political decisions are supposed to be taken seriously by business community and professionals since they affect everything we do.
Most business leaders can agree that William Ruto’s bad governance can be seen in their balance sheets and income statements as Federation of Kenyan employers among the Employee unions see the decisions in the payroll as employees’ outcry of the raiding of not only payslips but their wallet which they experienced in the ever-increasing VAT.
A young CFO of a leading bank in Kenya in the same forum revealed that his payslip has been raided to the extent that he has lost about Ksh112,000 to the government. He pledged that should there be any political formation that can give him back his payslip, his votes will go to that basket. This view is shared across the country.
My barber told me that the president over-taxation of the beauty products has killed the margins in the industry for the owners of the beauty shops and the workers such as masseuse and barbers. We have seen that due to over taxes, the percentage of alternative incomes for Kenyans have reduced to about 58% while last year it was 89%. This is the reason why the buying power of Kenyans is dropping to the extent that those who sell in the open market and boda boda businesses are dropping in revenue and the `Juakali sector businesses are dying.
The main problem Kenyans are facing is mostly because we have a President that is a businessman competing with other businesses for every business opportunity. This is the case of take over of Safaricom, the E-citizen matter, the evidence that the Green wheels company that operate the electric mortorcycles is the president owned. Ruto’s main aim is to be as rich as the Kenyatta’s & Moi’s.
He doesnt care about Kenyans at all. We have politicians that benchmark with Singaore, Japan, South Korean among other economic giants but immediately after assuming office they compare our performance with DRC, South Sudan, Somalia among other seemingly failed states. What they don’t tell Kenyans is that Singapore is led by the most qualified economist, the cabinet & the entire government is full of technocrats.
They pick the best and brightest, even those in diaspora are asked to come back to help build their Nation while for us we do the opposite by even trying to get them jobs outside the country. Can you say the same about Kenya? Kibaki had full cabinet of technocrats, uhuru hard 3/4 technocrats, Ruto has 9.99/10 politicians. In fact President Ruto has been plucking, deleting and uprooting professions from parastatal boards among other government agencies and replacing them with those who are Politically sound or tribal correct.
This has killed decency and equal opportunity in government and therefore making public service hostile for professionals hence the collapse of government services. Where is the country going with this trend?
Politicians have forgotten that that Kenya’s vision 2030 was modelled on Singapore, South Korea and Japan. That is why Mwai Kibaki put up a cabinet of technocrats and set up social and economic council to oversight vision 2030.
But this dream died as soon as Kibaki left office since President Uhuru came up with big Four Agenda that although borrowed from vision 2030, it created a bad precedence that has now allowed the deviation from the Vision 2030.
Inspite of the launch of medium term plan IV, its been called bottom-up Economic Transformation agenda, a model that is completely fake model that has never worked anywhere, is not working and wont work.
The Kenyan dream, surely cannot be realized with these politicians who have captured the state and are driving the country into an economic crisis. This is what the business community, professionals are saying.
Their only challenge is whether professionals have the political gravitas to outwit the politicians who have been in the system since independence. In that regard, we evaluate why politicians have managed to keep Kenyans following them in spite of the apparent failure in all sectors.
Every election period, politicians normally control the narrative by ensuring that the media headlines are full of their Stories. But with the growing dissatisfaction with every regime change GEN Zs and every Kenyan Middle class, professional or business minded person believe that there is a need for new political dispensation, that is, Kenya needs to be governed by Professionals. in fact the narrative that politics is a dirty game was coined by politicians to ensure professionals, afraid of their hard-earned CV stay away from politics but we urge Kenyan professionals to join politics and change it.
We have formed Concerned Citizens movement that we will launch soon that will accomodate Professionals. One of the most decorated corporate governance Expert wondered whether professionals will be able to master the lies that Kenyans wants to listen to. He believed that professionals want to explain how one plus one equals two as opposed to politicians who win by explain how one plus one equals 5.
Nevertheless, it is our belief that civic education will reduce the information asymmetry to give room for purpose driven campaigns than populism. I am happy that his civic education has now shifted to Twitter Space but must also find its way to reach those not in Space. That is why Harry Truman said, ‘Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I’ll show you a crook. The professoinals will learn that Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. ‘
Disclaimer. The words, thoughts and opinion in this article are entirely from the author and not associated with the safi news platform