On a recent face book update dated 8th July 2011, a friend was complaining of how Kenya donated one million U.S dollars, the equivalent of 82 million Kenya shillings to assist victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March this year. According to him, this was so unfair with the IDP situation in Kenya yet to be resolved. He used an analogy of a mother giving food to a neighbour’s children when her own were malnourished and desolated. That gets many thinking of a government Intentionally Deserting its People.
Let me give you a tour of what I mean by my title of an IDP Nation. IDP to a computer geek in a Kenyan University might mean Integrated Data Processing, while a track driver along Uganda-Kenya boarder may know it to mean International Drivers Permit. For the broadband penetration spam gangs and digital copyright pirates it sends a cold chill down their spine because it implies Internet Death Penalty.
A closer look at the acronyms in my motherland Kenya, I have come to the conclusion that over time, the term in practical sense may also connote Individual Development Plan. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) is a term that somehow has been misused for selfish reasons. Some time ago, I heard that some IDPs from the Kwanza regions of Trans Nzoia had pitched camp at the District Commissioner’s office demanding for a place to stay as they had been evicted from their own homes. Since they were eating in hotels and drinking bottled mineral water courtesy of government and donor funding, rumour has it that every Otieno, Wanjiku, Kiplimo and Wafula in town was now virtually sympathizing with them and offering to take a break from their jobs and join in the free once in a while festive.
I don’t want to raise eyebrows for the wrong reasons but don’t you think the whole thing has gone too far? There is this joke which might not be really amusing to some but it can serve as food for thought if you are familiar with the IDP situation in Kenya. The thought of how some people had been pushed to the wall by harsh economic situation as a result of post poll violence may serve as an explanation. But what happens when you come across a Kinuthia in Kiambu calling himself an IDP or an IDP Kipyego in Kericho highlands of Rift Valley? I am socialist and humanist by all means but I feel bad when three years down the line people are still hanging on to this IDP tag and crying for donor and government handouts.
Is there a way people can accept responsibility and move on with life even if they are not to blame for the circumstances they are in? Take for instance; what happens when you are right from high school or college looking for a job in a new town with no one to run to, do you resort to living in garbage pits or go begging for food door to door? Probably no you pick yourself up and try all avenues to make ends meet. Even though some opt for precarious survival options, still many rise from scratch to make a living.
Elections’ being marred by post poll violence is no news in some parts of the world. Take Uganda my country of residence as a classic case; there was a period of agitation characterized by violence, chaos and general unrest in many parts and specifically in Kampala where the seat of power of believed to be situated. This is a price people pay for putting misplaced loyalty to a good for nothing tribesman at the expense of visionary people centred leadership in case there is that alternative.
Economic development does not thrive where the phenomenon of peaceful coexistence and transparent governance and leadership is nonexistent. We can go ahead and point fingers at the government but what happens when a people are ignorant enough to be subjects and perpetrators of violence? How ignorant are Kenyans that after the 1992 post election violence, came the 1997 one and 2002 was not entirely peaceful in some parts of the country? Even when the Moi regime was painted as the years of tyranny, how come the worst post poll years came after he had handed over power to the then thought peoples’ messiahs? What ensued then if not violence Kenya had never experienced before? Does it serve any good to later complain when ends are not met through the eccentric means which in this case are aggression and fight for political control outside the ballot box? Some might argue contrary to my view point which is understandable in a world of freedom of expression and opinion but what is the logic in being influenced to rise against an innocent neighbor simply because they are from another tribe?
On July 6th, the Daily Nation reported a story of how the members of I Don’t Pay taxes Parliament were conspiring to strip the PM’s and the VP’s wives of their allowances if the three do not revoke the efforts to make MP’s pay taxes. And to make their threats more serious, the principals were risking going home without the golden handshake in form of allowances. I know you may think I was amused by this habitual peculiar selfish trend in Mr. Politician but I was not. What got me smiling is the swearing, cursing and the strong anti Mr. politician chants that recurrently echoed as I went through the comments that followed the link. One thing that I can promise for sure is that come the next general election, we might as well be sure to have more Individual Destruction Plans when the hated-(read secretly loved) bribe dishing politicians turn to the youths for assistance.
In my assumption, what goes on in the negotiation chambers is; I give you the ignorant electorate ksh 100/probably a dollar for chang’aa or keg and you give me the power to take my children to study in the west. In other words, I am buying your neighbour’s right to sleep in a descent house. When all is said and done, 2012 might be another year for the national self made IDPs rhythm. It is an Individual Development Plan for the Kinuthia’s of Kiambu and Kipyegos of Kericho who are after the government and humanitarian free goodies while to the Chepkurget in Eldoret who cannot sell her milk to the mama Wanjikus, this is nothing but an Individual Destructive Program.
Imagine producing milk in surplus and you cannot sell the milk to your neighbour because you need his money but not the living body that works for the money. Think about that Kenyan working tirelessly to own a car which is a symbol of prosperity in the village in the times when petrol is for the selected few in a land of barricaded roads due to violence. And what about the Kenyan businessman in Malaba who cannot access his goods because the youths in Kibera have enough extra energy to destroy railway lines but still cry foul over unemployment. What of the woman in Korogocho struggling to raise ksh. 100 where a 20 litre container costs 20 shillings because peace is an alien word?
Give it a thought before you go In Deep Prayer to intercede for or recommend Mr. Politician the “monster” to the pope for absolution. He is just playing his cards well in a survival for the fittest Darwinian world and in case you are yet to be oriented into the workings of the system, then welcome to manipulation 101. As there is the wine connoisseur, so is the political mind reader in other words politics genius playing with his subjects like characters on a chess board. Those who are familiar with the phrase “wanapiga watu wetu vita bali sio mimi pekee/it’s not only me but our people that are being fought” know what I mean.
In a multi tribal society of 42 aligned along “those” verses “us”, some politicians thrive in an Inter Dependency Political strategy to survive the cut and make it to the house of law makers. Such a mentality conceives the Gemas unity of survival necessity and the KKKs in a land where Mr. I Divide People carries the day. When objectives are achieved through the divide and rule strategy of development Ideas Deprived People in parliament, our sins catch up with us and then we are In Deep Problems when Ocampo comes calling. When that happens, the culprit big fish eyeing the house on the hill has nothing left but to chant a prayer, “Hope I Don’t Perish now that our people cannot salvage my political future.”
It will be a presupposition to generally claim that all politicians are a bunch of venal and egocentric leaders if I don’t pause and applaud some of the selfless and people centred leaders Kenya boasts of presently and in the past. Nevertheless, it is somehow innate that human beings have a high propensity to be selfish and the selfishness accelerates in the company of the like minded. While the original Kenyan IDP still spend cold nights in drenched tents, I Do Pray that the noble few humanistic political activists will push the salvation agenda forward and spread a peaceful propaganda for the sake of the future that will see the birth of an anti-IDP Nation.
See you fellow citizens of an IDP nation after the 2012 general elections if God wills. With the repeated political patterns over the years, I hope it is not going to be possible for even the worst of history students to somehow predict the future political alignments and possible post poll outcome based on past events.
God bless Kenya my motherland.
