Every so often, something happens that restores my faith in democracy. It can be a meeting, an event, an interaction with a group of people.
Sometimes, I’m alone, pouring over data about the economy. One of my favorites is considering Kenya’s trajectory over the last 20 years.
This year’s estimate for nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is 147.3 billion dollars, up from 25.83 billion in 2006. That is 5.7 times more, in 20 years. Transformation is possible.
Last Saturday morning was particularly uplifting. I met an amazing group of 100 young professionals and business people in Rumuruti.
They are lawyers, surveyors, retailers, accountants, and horticulture experts.
They work in large scale commercial farms, in small and medium enterprises and in the public sector. They run their own professional practices and own their businesses, of various sizes.
I was impressed by their enthusiasm for the republic, candor and depth of debate. We spoke about our aspirations as a people for a prosperous Laikipia, with a high quality of life. We debated what it will take to transform Laikipia over the next decade. We spoke about the negative role of money as handouts in political processes.
Politicians are elected on the basis of a platform – a manifesto if you will. At the gubernatorial level, this is to be translated into the five-year county integrated development plan (CIDP), as required by law.
The annual slice of this plan becomes the annual development plan, which when the financing proposals are incorporated and approved by the County Assembly, becomes the annual budget.
The professionals noted the serious gap between aspirations of the people of Laikipia, manifestos of governor aspirants, and what gets done.
Handouts compromise accountability later, they insisted. We debated various ideas on building infrastructure, smart towns, farmer support, opportunities for business, and how to boost the county’s economy.
We debated how to harvest water at a large scale, and use it for irrigation. We debated how to buy down the cost of credit to make it more affordable for small business. We debated how to support innovation, and how common manufacturing facilities could possibly work. We debated how the county government could facilitate small business to access equipment for processing agricultural produce.
At the business connect dinner later that evening, we continued the debate, and I spoke on how to unlock business opportunities in Laikipia.
I spoke about agriculture, livestock and processing of agricultural products. I spoke about tourism, the digital economy and the role of political leadership in realising our dreams.
Governments must support small business by improving access to appropriately structured finance, markets and technology. They must support innovation, and make it easier for businesses to protect their intellectual property.
Political elites must dignify the people, the young professionals told me, feeling that the elite look down on the poor.
The elite seem to think that the poor are in that condition out of their own fault. This attitude, the professionals argued, is at the heart of the power relations in the county.
They decried the on-going political mobilisation, worried that it is taking a wrong trajectory. Using imaginary enemies to pit ethnic groups against each other puts multi-ethnic counties like Laikipia at great risk. Instead, they argued, political leaders should be focusing on how to get Laikipia working again, and present credible manifestos.
As I reflected on these arguments later, I could not help but smile, confident that however tough things may at times appear, whatever the challenges, the future of our republic is in great hands.
And that ‘we, the people of Kenya- acknowledging the supremacy of the Almighty God of all creation: Honoring those who heroically struggled to bring freedom and justice to our land: Proud of our ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, and determined to live in peace and unity as one indivisible sovereign nation: Respectful of the environment, which is our heritage, and determined to sustain it for the benefit of future generations: Committed to nurturing and protecting the well-being of the individual, the family, communities and the nation: Recognising the aspirations of all Kenyans for a government based on the essential values of human rights, equality, freedom, democracy, social justice and the rule of law’ were not wrong to exercise our sovereign and inalienable right to determine the form of governance of our country and to adopt, enact and give ourselves and our future generations, a constitution that recognises us as the sovereigns.