WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM! If you listen to any Luhya persons discussing about their leaders, you will hear incredible things – “Musalia oyomba, alipewa tu uongozi on a silver plate, does not want to fight for power, wachana na huyo – Jirongo ni bure tu! Hajawahi lete maendelo kwao – Marende ni ovyo, hashuguliki na watu wadogo, he is proud – Eugene ni mtoto, hawezi kazi ya urais – Kombo ni kombo kombo – Wetangula ni maringoya pesa mbili – Ababu ni maringo na mjuaji tu! – Khalwale na Shitanda ni makelele tu bila maendeleo – Oparanya ni mporaji tu – Akaranga ni pastor mwenye hajielewi! – Chanzu ni kama yule ndege anaitwa peacock wa maneno matamu matamu na hasira nyingi! – Lusaka anajaribu sana, is a gentleman, ubaya tu ni Mbukusu! etc.” The above descriptions of Luhya leaders by their kinsmen make me a worried man. Who then will be a reliable leader if we describe leaders and measure them with their badness? According to the inside-out approach or paradigm, we learn that if one wants to have a happy marriage, he/she should be the kind of person who generates positive energy about the other partner. If you want to raise pleasant and cooperative children, a parent is required to be more understanding, empathic, consistent and loving. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, you are required to be more responsible and helpful to your colleagues. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy as well. If you want to have greatness and public recognition, focus first on the primary greatness of your character which is honesty, truthful and self-esteem. The point am making is that we have a problem as a community as a result of lack of vision and leadership in our personal lives that on many occasions we’ve gone astray. We may feel vaguely uneasy and uncomfortable about our leadership and occasionally try to take steps to ease that pain in us, yet because it is chronic; we just get used and gradually learn to live with it – financial handouts, corruption, clanism, nepotism and tribalism. It is a fact that our leaders are uncaring, inconsiderate, arrogant, selfish and untrustworthy. This essentially reflects what is ailing our community. In my opinion, it is we the people who have the problem – we don’t tell our leaders what we want in life – we don’t seek original treatment to our diseases when we solicit for handouts instead of asking employment for our children, capital to do business, improvement to our roads, schools and health infrastructures, etc. More often than not, we try treating the symptoms with quick fix techniques instead of tackling the acute and chronic problem of poverty in our midst. It is unfortunate that we are lacking personal and inter-personal effectiveness in our characters for independent and authentic interaction with others – we love being cheated and fed on lies than the truth! Therefore, our leaders are good and normal persons just like other leaders elsewhere only if we as a community can change our attitude –know where we are going, what we want before we go, set specific goals and how to achieve them – in other words, develop a positive attitude towards ourselves and others. A leader is a servant to his people not a master! A leader cannot put himself in power until we the people do so! Christopher Amasava Aspiring candidate [MP] - Vihiga Constituency christopheramasava@yahoo
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:55:46 +0000
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