Politicians for Export

I recently came across an episode of The Scoop on YouTube. Salim Amin was interviewing Chris Kirubi. They discussed many things about business, investments, and Kirubi’s experiences as a media owner and DJ. There was however one thing he said that caught my ear. He was talking about Kenya as a country and how it is like heaven on earth. The only thing that stops Kenya from being great, he said, is its politicians. It is at this point that he made a clarion call, “If there is a country that has a deficit of politicians, we can just give them a shipload our politicians, then this country could be the greatest country on earth”.

Kirubi stated the reasons for exporting our politicians as the things they highlight in their politicking. They highlight religion, tribalism, and marginalisation. They do this for their own personal benefit. At this point I didn’t feel like a layman at all. This is what I would have thought as well.

Enough of my ‘laymanism’ for now. I have to say what the business mogul suggested. He thought politicians should manage an educated society. He also suggested that they should be busy finding ways of turning young people into job creators. He noted that the only way this country can progress at the best rate would be send the most intelligent people to politics. In the current situation, a lot of those in politics are the rejects who have failed in other areas of life.

Back to my ‘laymanism’. I think we should have politicians who are more of leaders and less of inciters. They should more of ‘other people’ and less of ‘themselves’ at heart. They should look at all things in the correct perspective and avoid politicising everything.

If you ask me, our politicians in their current form are unsuitable for export. What we need is some value addition. How about changing the way we choose them (read elections). If they were products, we would not care where they come from (read tribe). Instead, we would be more concerned about specifications (read integrity and core values).

Am thinking, if they were good enough to export, then they would even be better to keep. We would then end up with commodities with high demand and low supply. If we have to export our politicians, let’s fix them up. Let us improve the stock from which they are produced (read Us). If we do this, we would not have politicians to export; we would have a country to be proud of. We would be able to attract investors and tourists in staggering numbers. We would have many products to export instead of our (then) beloved politicians.

Quote me at your own risk – Am only a layman.