Opinion
By Robert Kituyi
Something is awfully wrong in the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto. If the recent government appointments of the old guards are anything to go by, then President Kenyatta and his deputy are a classical example of preachers who load down their followers with beautiful water summons but fill their own bellies with the best of wine.
The president in consultation with his deputy recently appointed their old and past sell by-date political cronies and wheeler dealer back into the government. They are the former head of public service Francis Kimemia, Eric Kiraithe, Henry Kosgey, Francis Baya, Franklin Bett, Julius Kones, police commissioner Hussein Ali as parastatal chiefs.
It complicates the matter even worse when you look at the appointees’ regional background. For heaven’s sake how does the government hope to take this country to the promised land of peace, unity and harmony they keep preaching to Kenyans with such skewed appointments?
Kenya is said to comprise 42 tribes, however it’s not a secret that one a parastatal with 10 board members have 8 from one community.
The youthful government, at least by their posturing is setting the country not only on a path of exclusion but also reveals the hypocrisy in our ruling coalition leaders. Any leader be it from the opposition or the ruling who imagine they can retain or ascend to power through ethnic arithmetic is a failure. I hope these tribal appointments are not what is informing Jubilee’s 2032 power game.
In their recent tour of Rift Valley, the president and his deputy implored residents who gathered along road sides and in market places to ignore voices that seek to divide them along tribal and political lines. They both reiterated that their coalition government was firmly settling for nothing less than a united Kenya.
On many occasions, deputy president, Ruto, has repeatedly told Kenyans who care to listen to join Jubilee Alliance Party because like his boss, Kenyatta, JAP outfit, is the like biblical Noah’s Ark which saved the first man kind and his flock from God’s fury of floodwaters that pounded forty days and forty nights.
They have repeatedly argued that JAP is the only political party that can rescue Kenyans from the rushing winds of negative ethnicity and partisan politics.
To the ears, the Ark (JAP) ideology of uniting all Kenyans sounds perfect. However the action from the President and his deputy as far as sharing the national cake which includes government positions, betrays the two leaders and their publicly proclaimed agenda of one Kenya.
It should be remembered that Jubilee used the youth employment dilemma to capture power in 2013. In their manifesto the duo promised to create a million jobs specifically for the youth annually. They also promised to fight corruption, grow the economy to double digit and eliminate hatred that apparently had risked the country’s existence after the catastrophic violence following the disputed presidential result in December 2007.
While there has been effort to tackle youth unemployment through initiatives aimed to create jobs where 70 percent of young potential working class are unemployed, such initiatives remain a pale shadow of massive looting and blundering by those spearheading them. The good National Youth Service program which targeted the bottom majority of unskilled youth apparently ignored the middle class graduates.
President Kenyatta and his deputy in their initial years painted a picture of a youth concerned government, at least by their body language then.
Their lips punch lines have largely been about youth. However, strategic government appointments continue to be reserved and dished out to the old guards who have been in various government positions albeit with no performance scorecard to write home.
The president in his wisdom believes young Kenyans are equally qualified for such positions but as he confessed at one point in 2013 that he did not know the demon that confused him to go against a power sharing agreement with apparently Musalia Mudavadi seems the demon remains loose on him.
The demon seems to continue holding the President hostage whenever he thinks of appointing the youth he only ends up appointing the old folks who have amassed enough wealth throughout their serving in different government positions.
Majority of young qualified Kenyans continue to wallow in the miasma and disillusionment of runaway employment wondering what became of the government of I believeKusema na kutenda. With their lip service the two have managed to create a perception that they have good programs that seeks to rescue the unemployment situation and place the country at the centre of economic recovery.
Conjuring digitalism to arouse the aspiration of the vulnerable youth has been the hallmark of Jubilee government. Without corresponding action to these much lip-servicing, is detrimental to the youth whose patience about to dry out as they feel being used as gimmicks. And that is not good for any serious government.
In whichever way you look at it the president has kept using the youth employment dilemma to hoodwink us and reward our grandfathers who are already wealth with plum jobs just to keep the status quo intact.
These appointments not only flies in the face of the majority youth groping in the dark through rampaging poverty, the high cost of living and run-away unemployment but also smacks the presidents’ public display of youthful demeanor with lopsided agenda for them.
With these skewed appointments one can comfortably conclude that the 20-year rule game plan by Jubilee is hinged on ensuring that the two ruling tribes position their ethnic chieftains in strategic plum government posts and hopefully rally their communities tightly around the centre of power for 20-years: 10 years each as the president and his deputy have publicly retorted.
