Once, during a presidential debate in the US, the two aspirants – Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale – were on the podium when the moderator asked Reagan whether his old age would affect his performance as the leader of the most powerful country on earth.
Reagan – known for one-liners – memorably responded: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” That was a lovely quote.
And it should apply conversely too, when it comes to the current political setting in Kenya.
When people say age is nothing but just a number, it comes in handy when someone does not want the issue of how old they are to be factored into any conversation. For the young, they would want to portray themselves as old and wise, while for the old and infirm, they claim all is in order when challenged on, well, anything. And it is especially so on the political front.
In Kenya – for inexplicable reasons – we have been going through a recycling process of some characters who, ideally, should be sitting under some avocado trees tending to their grandchildren while admiring their flock of sheep.
But they still think they are virile enough to fight it out with younger folks.
Take one Edwin Sifuna. His age has been made an issue, that he’s too young and not ripe for leadership. There are schools of thought that hold the opinion that he’s too young to be the head of state, that they should front one of the older politicians for the presidency because Sifuna still have time on his side.
Well, Sifuna might have time on his side but we Kenyans do not. We need someone like him who will change the entire political philosophy, focus on the right things and push this country forward.
My opinion is that the older fellows being fronted for the top seat may be experienced yes, but in the wrong things – mainly in grand theft of public resources. The political system they were brought up in can corrupt even the pope himself, as we saw with some of the fellows who were anti-corruption crusaders but when they got access to the feeding trough, their snouts have never even come up for air.
We honestly don’t want doddering rheumy-eyed ancient specimens of past glory to lead us into the proverbial Canaan. Tony Blair retired at the ripe old age of 54 from the premiership of the UK after an uninterrupted stint of ten years. Barrack Obama was all of 47 years when he became President of the US.
It is important to say that perhaps the time has come for one to retire and hand over the baton to a younger person.
Sifuna, for me, represents the aspirations of Kenyans, somebody who starts off from a clean slate and who has the capacity to transform this country. He is not only intellectually astute, but someone who’s integrity has never been put in question.
We need such young leaders to break the curse of the omnipresent African autocrat. We have that Cameroonian President who’s barely alive and spends most of his time in French and Swiss hospitals being pumped with oxygen and all manner of drugs. In a reversal of roles, he visits his country about once a year to prove to his people that he’s still alive.
We don’t want that. We want an energetic President who will have a strategic vision for this country, deal with corruption and crime, fix healthcare and improve the people’s standards of living.
And, now that we are talking, allow me to ask a rhetorical question: when do our politicians really work? When does the President for instance stay in office, flip through important files, ask questions of his ministers and technocrats?
The reason I am asking is that all is I see are rallies day in and day out, be it weekdays or weekends. We have turned politics into an art form, such that we spend enormous amounts of money and time addressing jobless crowds with empty words, knowing too well that nothing will come of it. We must take a break from this.
-The writer is a communications consultant
