Kenya, Aug. 26 -- Fellow Kenyans and Friends of Kenya, our country is facing one of the most important decisions in the country's present-day history. Given the social, economic, and political turmoil that Kenya has experienced throughout the past 3 years, the civil society, opposition must critically engage with country's capabilities and competencies as the country grapples with the foreseeable future.
Criticism goes far beyond current president's inability to govern effectively as ensuing challenging issues are intensifying but additionally concern his efforts to push the country towards meaningful development, stability, and safety.
Thus, as argued , Ruto seems unfit and unable to provide the Kenyan population with its prevalent desire for sociopolitical prosperity - instead, if he were to win the upcoming election, protests could arise, potentially spiraling into chaos and internal unrest, pushing the country to the brink of collapse.
Hence, the opposition must collectively organize not only for the elections but beforehand, as well, signaling its lingering demand for sustainable change. The power of the people is not to be underestimated - and in the case of Kenya we shall see if it is enough to tackle the 3-year Ptolemaic rule of William Samoei Ruto.
Among the luminaries in opposition is Okiya Andrew Omtatah who some say possesses uncanny agitational zeal, however, none of the attributes of greatness, and is more of a cautious anticorruption studious, observant politician than a comprehensive, far-seeing pro-active statesman.
It could be said that Andrew Omtatah has little business being President, but in a nation diminishing due to corruption, tokenism , extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, tribalism and over taxation burden, only a bland, affable political lightweight is palatable to the electorate.
Committed to a political style that emphasizes the nation's cohesion and compromise as a means of downplaying sectional differences, Omtatah offering himself as a presidential candidate while at the same lacking the strength of a Jomo or Moism tenacity is nothing short of a spat on national edifiable leadership at times of economic crisis.
Will later intimate in this article that for one who is concealing his true attributes, being a communist sympathizer then that disqualifies him from ascending to the high office on the hill. How else would he be competent enough to manage a capitalist economy when his persuasions are of civic republicanism or old soviet inclinations?
As a result, tumultuous economic events will simply overwhelm him, and he is sometimes dominated by indecisiveness emanating from following populist forceful totalitarian demands of the streets' macabre.
For most in the know, Omtatah is viewed as an inept chief executive whose traditional style of leadership fails in the face of the massive economic pursuits that hang over the nation.
Whether the elements of unseen divine inherent force in the Republic will have kept pace with its unparalleled progression in territorial infrastructure developments and wealth will be the subject of earnest thoughtful discussion during and after the tenure of Omtatah at the multi-pillar capital office on the hill.
Omtatah's political journey is one of a public interest litigator transitioning into a political leader. For many years, he was widely known as a fierce and relentless activist, often seen in the corridors of justice fighting against corruption and advocating for the rights of the common Kenyan, is this true Civic republicanism?
The litigious activist-turned politician equally observes that there are many Kenyans willing to chip in and contribute money towards his presidential campaign of 2027.
"My friend Senator Samson Cherargei told me I need a minimum of Ksh7 billion to run a successful presidential campaign. I have not started my presidential campaign, but I am looking for relatives and friends, people who are civic republicans in this country, who want a republic that is run in a very civil way," Omtatah once noted.
"I have reached out, and these civic republicans will be able to come together. Some have money, and some do not have as much money. The goodwill is there that once I roll out the campaign, they would be able to fund," he touted, then.
He underscores the need to obtain money from only those people who would not burden him with corrupt demands once he assumes the presidency.
"While money is something we know is required, we are also organizing to get clean money, which does not tie us down. There are many people who want to see this country move forward, and there is a lot of money locally," Omtatah observed.
However much he adopts the title "The Helmsman" and "The Redeemer of the Nation" as he cultivates "a cult personality", Omtatah is nothing close to a unifying force in the country and that is why those in opposition like Gachagua can entirely ignore his advances.
For him to attain to being a political genius, Omtatah should largely henceforth be at the forefront of the change paradigm and be considered the most antitheses to KK administration.
He should be forthright to the point of wildly radical whilst embracing strategic thinking cutting his teeth in actionable decision-making to remove the hegemony that is William Samoei Ruto, his existing power structure and bring the Kenya project empire under the rule of democratic integrity.
He should not be seen employing Gachagua-like self-aggrandizing language and titles of the yester years of Robert Mugabe nor catapulting a nation into a pariah state like the RT honorable Mr MOU 10 point agenda man.
He should not be seen as of non-alignment image, by now we should be having a special citizens' paybill for the civic struggle against executive presidency if we should see it dismantle in this gen z generational mayhem.
We can attest to the premise that Omtatah is a pro-Russian anticorruption enigma of the new Marxist socialist order and as such his far more archaic civic republican methods of tackling corruption through classical communal pre-Greek fallacies of involving the masses instead of ascribing laws to clarion fights are bound to fail (he is a senator for heaven sake; why isn't he imbibing anti-corruption struggle in the embodiments and tenets of the constitution).
His approach dissipates the correlation between the institutional and the social dimensions of corruption, and doesn't offer a broader perspective on curtailing both sources and consequences of corruptive activities and corrupt manners than the dominant liberal, political-economic approach.
The aim of Okiya Omtatah should be to demonstrate that his civic republican approach to corruption helps to pin down the complexity of the problem of corruption while at the same time not masquerading behind the processes of neo-communist democratization.
While on the campaign trail and the senate's floor he should be categorical in his approaches to corruption, as well as consummate the civic republican approach and the literature on social trust, while engaging with his petulant theoretical analysis of corruption in our country.
As a senator, Omtatah has been nothing short of apathy with nothing to his name nor anything close to being an agrarian change maker even in his backyard of Busia county where the sugarcane farmers need him most in safeguarding their produce, farms, wealth and meager earnings that have disproportionally been wantonly devoured by new Asian Arabic sugar factory barons and scheming spurious reformists in the KK administration.
Nambale MP Geoffrey Mulanya was quoted before saying farmers and leaders ought to be consulted before any temporary closure of Busia sugar factories is effected.
Busia, a small town on the Kenya-Uganda border, is at the epicenter of the current sugar crisis. The price of the sweetener in Busia and across Kenya has reached an all-time high, with a 2kg packet is retailing between Kes450 and Kes500 in various parts of the country, up from Kes300 one year ago.
Francis Maingi, the proprietor of a small supermarket in Busia town, has observed a peculiar phenomenon among his customers, primarily sugar producers. They approach the sugar shelves with reverence, carefully reading the prices, pausing, and then leaving without making a purchase.
For many residents of Busia, who cultivate sugarcane, the scarcity of sugar amid the vast acres of unharvested cane from frustrated farmers, as sugar factories shut down due to cane shortages, is a misnomer.
The county, home to several sugar factories, including Busia Sugar Industries at Busibwabu and the West Kenya factory at Olepito, and bordering Mumias Sugar, has witnessed the industry's collapse due to intense cane poaching and imports across the border. The worsening cases of smuggling of the sweetener over the years have further impacted their fortunes.
Now, the county residents, particularly the rural poor, can no longer afford sugar, causing real distress. Sugar is not just a luxury on their breakfast table but a crucial ingredient in distilling the local brew, chang'aa, which, despite being declared illegal, sustains a significant number of households in the area.
The proprietor of Frankmatt supermarket mentions that, although he sells a two-kilo pack at Kes480, many buyers cannot afford it. According to statistics, Busia County has a poverty index of 83 percent.
From Gmoney Brandm
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Bana Kenya.