In Summary
- Most voters are intelligent, independent and educated, and they will most likely listen to all the pledges and not buy any of them”
Genius, or the generation of great ideas, is an epiphany that results from a person’s ability to mentally connect the relationship between two or more different but related facts.
Better yet, no matter how great an idea is, it is the implementation process that really counts. There is thus a need to be methodical while at it, maintaining discipline, knowing that some of the desired results will not be realised overnight.
In Kenya, we seem to always have very good ideas at the outset. It is often said that many of the Asian Tigers, were once at par with Kenya in economic terms.
We are further told that some of them, like Singapore, borrowed heavily from Kenya’s sessional papers in the early to mid-1970s.
The clear difference, as is evident now, is how the contents were implemented. Kenyans today must realise that some of the brilliant ideas that have been crafted take an inordinately long time to realise and they may sometimes get it all wrong trying to implement others within unrealistic timelines.
Having good intentions is great but if we do not think through their execution and give them time for evolutionary implementation, then we are bound to fail.
We need to move away from doing things in a revolutionary manner, taking into consideration their natural course and the fact that some ideas have to take time to develop.
It is fine for people to have a strong sense of anticipation for the new county governments, but we should be prepared for some teething problems.
I am not trying to be alarmist, but a pragmatist will realise that even with a Transitional Authority in place to prepare us for the county government system, there will still be a learning curve that we must journey through.
I am not even sure that the people contesting for county positions, including the governors, understand that they will be reporting to the Transition Authority in the first three years they will be in office.
Therefore, even as we go into the elections, let us all manage each other’s expectations. Politicians, for instance, should stop making promises they cannot deliver.
They need to be realistic. They need to tell us the truth about how they have thought through implementation of the county system, relative to sustaining the operations of the central government in the first 100 days. The fact is, it is going to be a lengthy and costly exercise and Kenyans must brace themselves for it.
Most voters are intelligent, independent and educated, and they will listen to the pledges and not buy them. We are wary of blanket promises, some of which, on the surface, may seem attractive, but which will not be workable even in trying to implement good ideas before their time.
Our education system, for example, is now at a crossroads. On the one hand, the 8-4-4 system was welcomed when the government introduced it more than two decades ago. Today, the majority of youth have gone through this system.
When you now say it is bad, what kind of signal are you sending to our children? That they are not worthy after all the effort they put through school?
Yet when I listen to the aspirants for political office, all of whom this country will rely on to help guide the implementation of ideas to develop our society, I am saddened by the irresponsible promises they make.
However, I remain optimistic that as a nation, we shall make headway by relentlessly believing in a better future.
Dr Mailu is the chief executive officer of the Nairobi Hospital (cleopa.mailu@yahoo.com). The views expressed are those of the writer and not of the institution.
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