I read a story of a crowd of angry
men who brought a woman before a Wise-man and asked the Wise-man, “This woman
has been caught in the act of adultery and the law commands us to stone such a woman.
So what do we do? And the Wise-man answered, “Let him who is without sin be the
first to throw the stone at her.” And before long no single man was left
standing at the scene. They all went!
I bet most of the Kenyans are angry with the greed of the
legislator and would like to stone them, for their demand on higher salary and that the Salary and Remuneration Commission
reviewed their salary downwards, but before we go to the street and demonstrate,
before we seek one million signatures from Kenyans so that we can recall the
election or before we beginning stoning the legislators lets first think about
the one million dollar statement : “ let that Kenyan with no greed cast the
first stone”
All Kenyans generally are greed (I stand to be corrected)
either directly or indirectly, is just that the greed manifests itself in
different circumstances, forms and capacity. Just to give an example; how many
times have you read or heard the news and saw a petroleum truck that has
overturned and saw Kenyans siphoning oil from it yet they have witnessed other
Kenyans burn to death on such an activity? How many times have you seen a beer,
bread or a soda truck having an
accident and see Kenyans running to the scene not to help the accident victims
but rather to enjoy the “free products” of the accident some even going to an
extent of stealing from the accident victims? How many times have you entered
into a matatu and the conductor failed to ask you the fare and you just walk
away without paying? We have just come from a general election the other day
and I bet you have a campaign material either a cap, t-shirt, poster or
anything that falls under this category for a politician you did not support
yet you took his cap, t-shirt reason
being...it was for free!!and if you do not have I bet it’s because you were not
exposed to such an opportunity .This example which are just among the few in
our society have one conclusion which can
be observed and that is people like free
things. This free things in the long term leads to greed because we want
everything even the ones we have not worked for and that’s the main characteristic
of greed and that’s why a hyena is known
to be greedy because it eats what it has not hunted. More so, the main argument
the politicians are giving in their quest for higher salaries is that members
of their constituencies see them as ATM machines and they always ask them for
hand-outs commonly known as chai(tea).
I think it is a high time we change the “free philosophy” in
our society. Maybe this philosophy came with the colonisers when they brought
many gifts to the Kenyan community chiefs in order for them to support them
conquer other communities that did not
support them and these chiefs were awarded with wealth and high position in the
colonial government and since then Kenya
has had this idea that a leader must have wealthy and be very rich and that’s why( maybe) one of the reasons
Kenya has had a long trail of rich presidents and
politicians or maybe we may blame our upbringing in schools where we saw
prefects been given small free gifts and
hence many students struggled to be prefects to enjoy such free gifts or even
serving with a lot of favourism when they did not report their friend to the
teacher and we grew up in the belief leadership is a matter of personal
benefit.
We are now in 2013, a new generation of Youth have emerged
and I think we need to change the rules of the jungle and the tables must turn.
We need to remind each other of leaders such as Dedan Kimathi, Wangari Mathai,
JM Kariuki, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln and many other
around the world who put their lives in service of people not for their own interest
but for society benefit, of which the fruits we enjoy today on the other hand
we also read in history about leaders like Id Amin Dada & Mobutu Sese Seko
who because of their greed they messed with the lives of their people and the
economy of their country. Look at like a country like DRC which is endowed with
valuable minerals but due to its greedy leaders like Mobutu the country is
among the poor countries in Africa.
As a new generation I think it’s a high time we stop using
old fashioned ways of raising our demands. We will demonstrate until when? Why can’t
we use future oriented techniques to ensure that we put the last nail on the coffin
of greed and bury it forever and ever and ever to be forgotten? Just the other
day we demonstrated when the Members of parliament wanted to award themselves
heavy send-off packages and yet still right now when they are demanding for
higher pay we may be tempted to demonstrate again....this sends one message
that the demonstration did not convey any message to the minds of politicians. Thou
am not against demonstration which I always think is the best way to voice the
injustice in the society, why can’t we also develop modern methods which will
change the direction of Kenya leadership once and for all because by the end of
the day it’s not only our leaders that are greedy but each and every Kenya is a
victim of such a vice either directly or in directly. I think we should form
youth groups and go to schools or even call for youth conferences and share or
teach each other about service to people and leadership skills
cause am sure everyone has something to share and through this will be able to
understand the problems facing our society due to greed at different levels
such as in our family, community,
constituencies, county, national and international level and with no time we
shall have developed new leaders who will defiantly enter into history to serve
as a source of inspiration to future leader and generation.
Do not get me wrong am not against philanthropic Kenyans
neither am I against free things from the government such as free education and
now free laptops and milk. But free things from the government such as free
education is an economic strategy to increase the revenue of the country, whereby
the government will offer free education to the people, who will eventually get
jobs and the government will tax them hence increase the taxation income unlike
when majority of people fail to get jobs due to lack of education
qualifications and go to casual employment which are rarely taxed.
President Uhuru on the opening of the 11th
parliament he stated that approximately 50% of the government revenue is spent
on paying government civil service and I think this may increase due to the
fact that members of parliament have increased from 222 to 349 and more civil
servants are being employed for the ongoing devolution program. And I think as
a developing country, we should be investing more than 60% of our revenue in
infrastructure and income generating activity in order to achieve vision 2030
or else by the time we achieve that vision we will be heavily in
debts.
In my opinion it’s no time to point fingers towards our
politicians because by the end of the day the other fingers point towards us,
because it’s us who voted them there. It will begin by each one of us learning
to eat his own genuine and honest sweat and training ourselves to be leaders
not to benefit ourselves but our society and leadership is not about a heavy
monthly pay but rather having heavy ideas for the development of the Kenyan
society and history has proved this right look at leaders like Mobutu Sese Seko
who seeked to enrich themselves and how they perished.
As for me and myself I chose not to cast the first stone,
because am a greedy Kenyan in one way or the other, but to walk out of the
stoning scene but at the same time to support the Salary and Remuneration
commission for undertaking their constitutional mandate as per Article 230 of
Constitution. SAY NO TO GREED AND WALK THE TALK!!!
