KENYAN GREED SYNDROME

 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 11^th 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!!!