Can Uhuru Kenyatta Save Kenya or are Kenyans Doomed for Ever?
Kenya is not a poor country. It is rich with very hard-working people. However, the political leadership is very backward and primitive (politically speaking). Kenyans are told that Kenya is the biggest economy in East Africa but millions of citizens are living in absolute poverty, unable to even live from hand to mouth.
Kenyans still think that the country is better than its neighbours because the citizens of Tanzanians are poor in English and better in Swahili, a language which, despite being our national language, we can hardly understand if sheng is removed from the scene and real Swahili is brought in.
We think that we are better than Uganda because the people of Uganda have allowed dictator Yoweri Museveni to preside over a ruthless, tyrannical and autocratic regime for 32 years “without doing anything”. Our view is that we dethroned former dictator Daniel arap Moi easily after Moi’s 24 years in power by just writing a new version of that document called the Constitution.
Where did we go wrong?
We think that both Ethiopia and Eritrea have been in a worse situation than us because they were engaged in decades of a fratricidal and hopeless war for nothing since they are one people. We are proud because of the illusion that for decades, our neighbours – Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Sudan have been thinking that our filthy city of Nairobi is a European city.
When many Tanzanians cannot speak good English, we blame them and think they are illiterate. But very few Kenyans can explain politically why Tanzanians eradicated tribalism. We only know that former President Julius Nyerere is the person who implemented the magic to vaporize tribalism in his country. We have been lied to but we are too blind to see it. Why?
MALTA: This is a tiny island measuring a tiny 316 sq km and arid with a population of 500,000 but the country is self-sufficient in food. While wages are low in Malta, the nation’s low cost of living allows workers to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. In addition, the government provides housing subsidies for low-income families. Education and health care are free and available for most Maltese, though medical services are limited. With unemployment low (4.5 percent in 2000) and the standard of living relatively high, Malta is ranked 27th in the world in the United Nations Human Development Report 2000 . The standard of living doubles every 13 years. Its economy is very vibrant driven by tourism & services industry creating a rich nation with GDP per capita of over Us$42,500 (Kshs. 4.25m)
BRITAIN: measures 240,000 sq km with arable land of less than 60,000sq km. Though cold most of the year, Britain is self-sufficient in food for its 70m citizens plus millions of legal and illegal immigrants who are an economy unto themselves. Britain’s population holds $9.24 trillion (£6.01 trillion) in private wealth, surpassing France, Italy, Canada and Australia. This is despite its relatively small population compared with countries such as Germany. Britain has GDP per capita of us$42,300 (Kshs. 4.23m).
ICELAND: This cold Island measures 103,000 sq km with less than 1,000 acres (yes, 1,000 acres) of arable land but is able enough to produce sufficient food for its 340,000 people. Iceland is the world’s largest electricity producer per capita. The presence of abundant electrical power due to Iceland’s geothermal and hydroelectric energy sources has led to the growth of the manufacturing sector. Power-intensive industries, which are the largest components of the manufacturing sector, produce mainly for export. Manufactured products constituted 36% of all merchandise exports. With economy driven by services industry, its GDP Per Capita is whopping us$52,000 (Kshs. 5.2m)
KENYA: our landmass is 580,000 sq km bigger than all the countries above nearly three times. Our arable land is over 60,000 sq km, same as Britain . However, our GDP per capita is at a pathetic ghetto level of $3,000 (300,000/=). We can’t feed ourselves because foreigners have occupied our most fertile lands where they cultivate cash crops like flowers and pyrethrum for export. Our best clothes are second-hand mitumbas Europeans have worn and discarded while we can’t even conduct a free and fair election. We are now stuck with a perpetual drunkard for President, a perpetual billionaire thief for Deputy President and the President has permanently sold us to the Chinese. The country will soon be auctioned.
The 64 dollar question
The 64 dollar question is this: with so thousands of acres of arable land, plenty of rain that drowns us during rainy season, plenty of man-power by way of millions of idle youths ready to go to work, thousands of jobless graduates in the agricultural sector and every known advantage on our side, why haven’t we been able to accomplish the most basic re4quirement in human endeavor – being able to feed ourselves? Why can’t we produce maize, wheat, sugar, milk, beef et al in such quantities we can feed our people and still have so much for export?
How can we import food from such poor and miserable countries such as Uganda, Malawi and Zambia? How can we be so stupid that we kill our sugar industry then import contaminated mercury-laced sugar from Brazil and Mexico to kill us when we are already dying of treatable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis?
Our game-parks belong to foreigners including the national air-line – Kenya Airways – which belongs to the Dutch. More than 55 years after independence, descendants of the white British colonialists continue to occupy very fertile land-masses in Kenya and these national assets are still called “white highlands”. This is at a time when ten out of ten Kenyans especially in urban areas are landless. Where did we go wrong? Who sold us or, better still, who bewitched us?
We know those looting this country, but we continue to allow them to continue holding on to power to continue oppressing us. Why?
Regardless of how you look at it, the future is bleak, and we are doomed. The government is broke and the Opposition, which could have provided hope for a better tomorrow, is effectively dead and buried. Let us all prepare to start dying painful deaths one by one by killing each other as the struggle to survive drives the poorest Kenyans into crime, conmanship, anarchy and chaos. If you can solve the problem, please, let me know.
