By Dikembe Disembe
Tomorrow, Ipsos Synovate (formerly Steadman Group) will release a poll which, among other things, will centre on:
Kenya’s most serious problems
Reported change in households’ economic conditions in the last 3 months
Proportion of Kenyans sleeping hungry
Views on the country’s direction
Performance of Jubilee Government
Levels of Confidence in Public Officials/Institutions
Perceived Achievements of the Jubilee Government
Performance comparison with previous government
Incidents of crime and reporting
Awareness of areas of recent insecurity
Proposals for improved security: locality/the nation
Opinion on US spying: leaders/citizens/terrorists
Al Shabaab/Somalia issues/KDF
Other Public Issues:
The ICC cases
Devolution/Referendum
Politics: political party alignment and correlations
Raila’s political future
Social-cultural issues: sexual violence and suicide
These issues are good for public discourse, however, it is curious to note that apart from the public issues, Ipsos has a SPECIFIC item termed ‘Raila’s political future’.
Why would a pollster centre on an individual politician’s ‘political future’ and poll people questions on it in ISOLATION of ALL his competitors? How about Uhuru Kenyatta’s political future? How about William Ruto’s political future? Fait accompli?
Raila Odinga is not the President of the Republic of Kenya neither has he been in the government bureaucracy longer than the other ‘unpollables’.
People should not forget that leaders like the President and the Deputy President were in government long before Raila Odinga came closer to it.
Why the obsession with Raila Odinga’s eventuality? Who wants him out, and why?
How, for God’s sake, was this question framed?
“Do you think Raila Odinga should remain in politics?” “Do you think Raila Odinga should vie in 2017?” “Do you think Raila Odinga should retire?” “Do you think. . .blah blah blah?” Are you thinking?
Curiously, the pollster lists these two items:
Performance of Jubilee Government
Perceived Achievements of the Jubilee Government
Heck, what’s the difference? There cannot be ‘perceived achievements’ of the Jubilee government. You either achieve or fail. Why is the pollster fucking up questions touching on the Jubilee government? Performance or ‘perceived achievements’?
Was Eurobond an achievement or a ‘perceived achievement’? Was the US tour an achievement or a ‘perceived achievement’? Do Kenyans know the costs and debts of just these two much publicised Jubilee Alliance ‘breakthroughs’?
What, for example, is the Jubilee government’s employment policy towards youths? Is the culture of young ‘tenderpreneurs’ sustainable in the long run? Is the private sector growing? Has bureaucratic inefficiencies changed with the coming into power of the ‘dynamic duo’?
Back to Raila.
Why the obsession with Raila’s political future? This is it:
Ever since the jubilee alliance came to power; the preoccupation is to ensure Raila exits before 2017. They want to put in the minds of people that Raila Odinga is ‘too old’.
Yes, Raila Odinga is old, but he will never form a paramilitary in Kenya.
Odinga is old but he knows the youth institutions of the future are those that give birth to properly trained young kenyans to power the industries and make new innovations and defend the country not by cooked nationalism but by skills that add value to the nation’s soft power base.
Youth institutions of the future are not those which use billions of taxpayers money and donor loans to produce graduates of Kibra cleaning programmes and, or Mukurwe Kwa Njenga paramilitary unit.
Raila Odinga is old but he will never spend millions of shillings in paid newspaper adverts urging young people to ‘go on be great’ when universities cannot pay lecturers and ‘brainy youths’ are dropping out of colleges because tuition is high and student-loans are dwindling. Go on be great and stop thinking?
Yes, Raila Odinga is old, but he has the mind to predict that the next 50 years will be ‘county years’ and those on the right side of history aren’t carrying briefcases loaded with millions dishing each weekend in villages across Kenya but are ensuring that devolution works, institutions strengthened and societies allowed to determine whether they have the right to face off their leaders or are still bound by chains of a colonial dogma which reminded all as being ‘subjects’ of an imperial presidency, not ‘citizens’ of a sovereign and plural nation.
However powerful Odinga may be, you will never apologize for booing him and heckling him and throwing your shoes in the air. Yes you will never come down from Nyeri in busloads!
Yes, Odinga is old but not too old for the rule of Law or too repressive on dissidents.
Odinga is old but he knows pesa ni ya mama yangu, yako na yenu!
So, if steadman, or Ipsos, wants to know the ‘future of Raila’, that’s a question that cannot be asked in isolation.
Across distant lands where the pollsters’ ‘researchers’ may not reach, little Raila Odingas are daily defining their relationship with the future.
Be all these as they may, tell me, friends, what are the ‘perceived achievements’ of the Jubilee government?