We cannot invest so heavily to educate children. Then we vo…

Kibaki was a philosopher who became a King. He was not a PRIMARY POLITICIAN who won power. He was a scholar who became a politician, ascended through the ranks, and finally rose to be President. This is the course that should give us great leadership

Back to my question: Why wouldn’t @DavidNdii offer himself to be our President. Look at the many parallels he shares with Kibaki. They are both herdboys in their background. Peasant upbringing and local education in local schools from where they excelled.

They both studied or specialized in economics, Ndii in UON and Kibaki in Makerere. They both advanced in economics in prestigious UK universities; Kibaki in London School of Economic and Ndii in Cambridge (I guess)

They both came back to teach at universities, Kibaki in Makerere and Ndii at UON. They were both recruited to serve in government and develop national policies. Kibaki became the first CEO of Kanu and later key team in the sessional paper on African Socialism

From then on, Kibaki took a career in politics, assistant minister, minister, VP, and finally President. The intervening period between VP and President was quite a tortured journey, but that is besides the point

David Ndii got into consulting for the government but could not get into mainstream politics. Because the circumstances were much different than they were for Kibaki at independence. What happened? What changed? I will explain

Before answering let also mention another parallel. In the late 70s, Kibaki was named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 people with global leadership qualities and potential. Recently, Ndii was named among the top 20 influential economists in the world.

In other words, Ndii has what it takes, just like Kibaki. I have followed his writing and ideas for 20 years, I believe he can transform Kenya in just 10 years – by creating capacity in rural areas and developing informal businesses into a strong enterprises.

Anybody who read NASA’ s policy paper before 2017 elections would have marveled at the ambition, the creativity of policy proposals, and their economic implications, courtesy of Ndii. Like how the country can revolutionize the textile industry by just changing official dress

So where did we go wrong? We separated politics from scholarship and decided that politics and power is for PRIMARY POLITICIANS, while PRIMARY SCHOLARS WHO WANT TO SERVE US IN LEADERSHIP, WE CONTEMPT THEM.

Note that this dichotomy went down to the policy making. Once politicians took hold of power and influence, they smoked out policy makers from the entire decision-making process.

In the early 70s when people like Kibaki were in government, there was a close collaboration between learning and policy. Institute of Development Studies at UON was heavily involved in government policy. Schools of medicine, agri/veterinary etc were developing gvt policies

Today, policies are made by politicians with little consultation with scholars. Even technocrats in government offices drawing salaries from public taxes hardly use their knowledge to serve their country. One reason work morale is so low in public sector

We have engineers who just hear about road projects they never designed or proposed. Senior MOH officials who learn about the importation of mobile clinics they never recommended. During COVID-19, we saw half-hearted attempt to mainstream technocrats

We were able to see brilliant people like Mwangangi who are buried in the daily political whirlwinds. We were able to hear special vocations like epidemiology that most never heard of. In Kenya politics is everything

Yaani our country spends enormous resources to educate people and develop universities – all for their own sake. We never absorb their work into the running of our country. Why we are ravaged by poverty and tribalism and diseases – when we have top talent in our midst

But when academic politicians offer themselves for leadership, we hurry to spite them –hana support, haendi mahali, anatumiwa kugawanya kura za waluhyia...
Fellow Kenyans, how did we get here? NEXT

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We cannot invest so heavily to educate children. Then we vote in miscreants to be leaders and role models to the same children. Its foolish. Part 4

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