The biggest failure to our maturity as a nation has been the failure by the intelligentsia, the civil society and the so-called Young Turks to interrogate and hold accountable the successive regimes since independence. While the ‘leaders’ have proclaimed all over and from mountain tops that they will eradicate poverty, ignorance and disease; that they will provide ‘the second liberation’ then ‘the third liberation’, the common mwananchi has been left be-dazzled by the sound-bytes and the sloganeering. Unsubstantiated facts without much substance because no-one ever asks ‘how’, 'how much'.
Those in the know mumble under their breaths but do not dare put the politicians and the technocrats in government on the carpet to explain themselves- this has been either because they are themselves holding vested interests or are beneficiaries from the powers that be and have themselves therefore, been used as functionaries and apologists of the regimes.
The eradication of poverty and ignorance were stillbirths at the get-go when the powers that be realized that ignorant masses were easier to govern and plunder. Diseases have had an equal footing with progress- and sometimes prevailing over the latter due to the rampant corruption that has bedeviled these regimes. Diseases that had been eradicated like Polio, TB and such vermin like lice, jiggers, and bedbugs have made a comeback with a vengeance.
The missing functions of demanding substantiation and explanations on how goals, aims and promises- even public policy will be attained have failed to insert appropriate ratchet mechanisms to hold the leaders accountable. Formulating the national budget and scrutinizing it has been left for the politicians who understand very little or are simply uninterested in the functions therein. This has ensured the five-year periodical circuses we’ve participated in all along- our elections. The high and mighty come down from the clouds, raise dust among us with their SUVs and choppers, give some hand-outs here and there, promise to provide free education to everyone, enough food for all, upgrade all roads and electrify every homestead, make rains, create rivers and running water so the women stop travelling miles to fetch water, but they don’t disclose how they will attain those goals without adversely affecting the day-to-day livelihood of the beneficiaries. They then take off to dine and wine together in the clouds leaving us fighting and killing each other.
The first liberation was supposed to return all the land the colonialists had expropriated to themselves but most of the said land ended up not with the original owners, those that had been displaced by the white colonialists but with a clique of new-look ‘colonialists’. The would-be liberators had turned into ‘willing buyer-willing takers’ of land. The same old colonial education system- which had been designed to keep the lesser mortals ignorant was maintained to ensure the same and, in abject poverty, disease haunts the masses till the present. The leaders can, of course, afford to seek medical attention abroad.
The second liberation was mainly a clamour for the expansion of the democratic space and tolerance of divergent political views after decades of oppressive single political party politics. Personal loyalty to the powers that be had become the yardstick or gauge to measure one’s survival in mainstream politics. Some would-be aspirants drummed up support from the Civil Society and the Western foreign missions to press for the liberalization of political views. The masses were caught in the lights and enthralled by the audacity of the newly sprung political players. Individuals who would dare shout in broad daylight what everyone feared to even contemplate in their own thoughts for fear of the government ‘reading ones mind’ The sudden impotence of the previous omnipotent and omniscient seemed simply incredible. Many of these were simply politicians seeking their own political space on the high table where the national cake is eaten. Civic education was thrown out through the window and so the masses were left exactly where they had been- ignorant. Registration of political parties was liberalized and that was the end of ‘the second liberation’. Political tolerance still eludes us and this can be seen in the recent party nominations that gave birth to thousands of “Independent’ candidates for the soon to held polls, Independents who are by no means independent but power hungry ‘have-beens’, individuals simply trying to hold on to something they had developed a liking for. By and large except for some fluke scenarios, personal loyalty to party bigwigs, read flag-bearers, is still a unit of measure in our politics. The masses are still mostly in the dark as to the workings of state. The government and the not-so-able opposition still treats public information as some medication, to be released in small doses, if any and or for political mileage. The cost to public policy has sky-rocketed with the excessive borrowing by the government and the impossible public wage bill. No one feels the need to explain to the masses the actual cost of the promises they give on the campaign platforms, the masses are on the same vein not well informed on the actual cost or burden, of gross national corruption which has reached uncharted heights.
The intelligentsia are a factor who, like wonders, will only increase and need to break their silence when government and opposition are not disclosing information or venture into the excesses. Young Turks almost all the time end up being assimilated in the political class getting themselves even murkier than the old guard. The civil society need to embark and keep at civic education which is the only liberating method which will truly bring the final liberation- to the mwananchi.
