Fellow Kenyans, countrymen, lend me your ears and please leave your hearts out of this weighty matter before us.
Let us start with the facts. Tony Blair took over as Prime Minister of one of the major Western powers of this planet in 1994 when he was a tender 41 years old. Looking at his tenure and even despite criticism, he has done a reasonably good job. Mr Blair is now retired at the age of 54. That age in Kenya is way too young to become president.
Bill Clinton was 47 when he was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the most powerful nation on earth in 1993. To date he is one of the most successful democrat presidents in the history of the US.
This November 15th Mwai Kibaki, baptized Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries (but he never uses those names), will be 76. If elected to another term as President of an almost obscure 3rd world country, he will complete that second term at the age of 81. Age is nothing but a number, but surely@#! Assuming that we do this thing the Kenyan way where the presidency is some sort of monarchy that hands down power to the VP (that’s why George Saitoti was so angry that Moi did not hand over the presidency) then Moody Awori should take over the reigns in 2012. He will be a “youthful” 85 years old.
Raila Amolo Odinga who many believe is currently the front runner challenger for the presidency, is 62 years old and if elected at the end of this year, he will finish his term aged 67.
Kalonzo Musyoka whom the Akamba people are fond of calling “baby face” because he looks deceivingly young is 54, one year to the mandatory retirement age from the Kenyan civil service. But you can bet your lunch for the next month that the job he is after is many times more stressful than that of most civil servants.
All these folks want to be President of Kenya at all costs. But where were they during all those years which most Kenyans refer to as the Nyayo error? There time to rule was during that 24 years and is now past and gone forever. If these kenyans and their supporters really love their motherland, they should all make way for a younger generation of leaders.
Save for Raila who tried out the bad idea of a military coup in 1982, the rest were all cowering behind the Nyayo skirts. What do they expect now?
At this time when they should all be at their rural homes playing with their grand children and reminiscing, they want instead the presidency of Kenya. Little wonder that most government policies these days are excellent reminisces of the 70s when for instance the way to create jobs was to attract a couple of foreign investors to set up one or two big factories.
But the more scary thing is that if younger Kenyans (that is me and you) continue with their coward ways of wanting to cross the mud paddle that is Kenya today in a white suit and land on the other side spotless, then we may just find characters like John Githongo and John Kiarie (of redikyulas fame) fighting over the presidency when they are about 90 years old. That is because at this rate, that is the earliest that the present generation of jokers will all be through with dreaming of traveling in a long motorcade of vehicles. And it will not be because they are tired.
Kenyans need to wake up and realize that the challenges facing us in the world today are best suited to be handled by a new generation of Kenyan leaders. I hear people talking about experience and I get sick because when one considers the experince one Johnstone Kamau had when he took over as president, it is just laughable. The man had never been councilor even one day and the only institution he had led briefly was a school. Let me not talk about Moi because I will sopund abusive and I don't want to.
But you know where all this brainwashing of the young has come from don't you. It's from the guys who fear to come anywhere near a PC and who are ruling Kenya today telling you you need lost of experience. Experience doing what? Embezzling public funds and being corrupt and tribalistic? When all this is going on, younger Kenyans like the forty-something year old managing director of Barclays Bank Kenya are doing wonders generating profits for a foreign bank.
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