By the pen of Gîtau wa Kung'u ✒️
Behold the "Youth for youth" mantra. It is the new youth mantra. "Youth for youth" mantra is becoming engraved in major political discourses. Not only in the streets of the region, but also in the youth-crowded platforms of social media.
For long, youths have been used and misused by years rich politicians as Trojan horses to public offices. After which they are discarded as fast as a tissue paper once you have used it for its purpose! Well, Bob Marley said, "a revolution in the mind is a revolution in the streets."
The call for power shift from the older to the younger generation is fast gaining traction. This political discourse has occupied the public space in recent times and understandably so. Gerontological leadership or rather, leadership by the elders is under attack.
Oh yes, undeniably, the failure of most leadership by the older generation has ignited this backfire of trust, the initial adoration and mutual respect.
The question is what level and quality of leadership are we talking about even as we uphold "Youth for youth" mantra? Has the youth ruffed the old in behaviour, morality, leadership, integrity and frugality? How have our youths fared in the professions, the military and the civil service? Do they even hold out any hope for the nation?
Well, I am a youth. Even one of those ferociously preaching "youth for youth" slogan. But I'll lay my fears on the bare rock of honesty and say this: Yes youths want and have to stand up for each other to win leadership positions come 2023.
Will we moving into the sweet dreams of youthful, visionary, ideological leadership or into the nightmare of deluded visions of grandeur? Power is said to be stronger than wine, it's said.
Well, maybe what bedevils Kenya is the “one solution fits all” and “easy way out” syndrome. Why do I presume so? Let me drive you back the ghetto routes of memory.
In 2013, we voted in the now unpopular Uhuruto Jubilee government. "It's time for the young people to take over and run the government; vote youthful, visionary Uhuruto Jubilee government, vote for the change this country needs, tuko pamoja youths?"
And youths would jump up and down, lie and roll on the ground, dance and shake the air with defeaning "tuko pamoja tano tenaaaa." Now just go and say to any group of youths idling somewhere, "Jubilee!" You might not even finish pronouncing the last vowel before venom is unleashed to you. What's my point?
We must rush not to proffer beguiled "youth for youth" solutions to all our problems; transfer political power to the youths and all our problems are solved. So my friend Professor Nyamache points out. He then shares with me this brief explanation in a historical expression.
When a couple of years ago Americans voted in a 47-year old Barack Obama as their President, many Kenyans enthused that American politics had embraced youth power.
That Obama had attended the best schools in his country, volunteered again and again in providing free services to his communities, and had been involved in politics as early as he could, and the fact that he had been elected into the country’s Senate did not matter in their reasoning.
The only thing that registered was that a black person below age 50 was President. Many never bothered to study his trajectory to power. Had they done that, they would have realised that Obama did not become President simply because the United States of America decided that the old must give way to the young or whites to blacks.
No, Obama became President because, at that moment, he was adjudged the best among those who offered themselves for election. He had built up some national gravitas. He had been noted as having something to offer his nation, something great enough to even transcend whatever obstacles that had blocked the way of every black politician before him. In as much as his election was a black revolution, it was actually personal to Barack Obama.
The choice we face is not that of youthful versus gerontocratic leadership. It is one of strength, character, vision, courage, capacity, intellect and a deep understanding of the society and Kenya at large.
In as much as we preach the "youth for youth" gospel; we must not forget that the argument for and against any leadership should be based on record of achievement and leadership experience.
Anyando in his novel: Epic of Gor Mahia, depicts Gor, the Luo legendary leader as an example that age doesn't matter for legendary leadership; young people can also be legendary leaders. Nevertheless, when Gor gets old and has to pass over the baton to his sons, they rule in a despondent style that splits and thus brings the traditional Luo leadership into an end with the prevalence of British colonialism.
Well, age is definitely not a weighty determinant of good leadership especially in a democracy such as ours. What we need is courage, character and vision as age has nothing to do with good leadership.
Politics is a game of ideas, policies and numbers. The Kenyan youth needs to pay the required price, make the necessary sacrifice, study the problems facing the society, master how to solve the problems of the various parts of the Kenyan republic.
A youthful Mûrang'a County gubernatorial aspirant Joseph Kibugi alias Kibugi wa Ihîî usually says, "Youths are tired of belony promises. It's time for youths to dip their legs into leadership." Mr. Kibugi is only 25 years old.
The youths however, have to be disciplined enough to attend political meetings, play party roles, canvass for votes, identify the needs of their various peoples and seek to effectively represent them. They have to acquire organisational abilities, learn from the mistakes of the past and put themselves up for public service.
There are young men and women doing just that across Mûrang'a County and the whole country without making a song and dance of it. Among them sports CAS Zack Kinuthia who is eyeing Kigumo MP seat, Irungu Kang'ata, Chege Mugane, Flasia Nduta, Wakili Mûrîu, Nyutu, Ndindi Nyoro, Beth Waithira, Wambui Nyutu, among others.
Youthful Jared Oundo is also eyeing for presidency on Vitendo na Sera (VSP) Party
Plum offices will surely come to them as early as they did to Barack Obama, Canada’s Justin Trudeau or, France’s Emmanuel Macron or a few Kenyans like Uhuru Kenyatta.
Every nation is a work in progress. Governance is constant since it is what sustains the different nations of the world. Kenyan youths should be proactive and not tarry hoping that leadership will be thrust on them.
Muhunyo Jnr, a youth leader in Mûrang'a says, "leadership is not passed on like cigarette smoke!" Well, I concur, It has never been so and it will never be so.
Written by Gîtau wa Kung'u ✒️
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