MADARAKA DAY –THE DAY KENYANS MISSED THE BUS! By ndolo asasa Esq

With a booming voice, the First Prime Minister of the new Kenya State, The Hon. Johnstone Kamau a.k.a. Jomo Kenyatta announced to the jubilant Kenyans and an attentive world that Kenya would use its “Madaraka” to fight poverty, ignorance and disease to a thundering applause! And with this statement we missed the bus, almost totally! Or at least for close to 50 years we missed the bus. LAND. What had instigated the Africans and Kenyans for that matter to fight the colonialist for numerous decades was to regain their cardinal right to own, access and use land in whatever manners that was beneficial to them. The colonialists had become a stumbling block nay, a barrier to the said Kenyans using their land for fellow Kenyans wellbeing. Most well remembered is that Kenyans were not allowed to rear some kinds of livestock, grow cash crops and even own land in prime agricultural, tourist and urban areas. This is why the MAU MAU, our celebrated freedom fighters, were alleged to have been so agitated that when anyone of them fell to the colonialist’s and homeguards’ bullets they clutched soil in their hands as a last act of defiance and a signal to continue fighting for the land, our land. The utility and identity value of land is what makes us fondly call our country, OUR LAND! But is it really our land? During this famous speech, 49 years ago Jomo Kenyatta interestingly and curiously FORGOT to include reclaiming OUR LAND , access to it and utility as a key focus of our Madaraka, the main result of the Mau Mau resistance! It MUST be remembered here that MADARAKA means power, authority and sovereignty! Is it not surprising that one of the key reasons why Kenyans fought for Madaraka, lost their lives, careers and opportunities was not a priority focus for the ‘independence regime’? THE QUESTION THEN IS, IF NOT LAND WHAT WERE KENYANS AND MAU MAU (The catalysts of our independence) IN PARTICULAR FIGHTING FOR ALL THIS TIME? As if to assert that the exclusion from focus was not a mistake, 49 years after the said attainment of MADARAKA we do not have a national policy on land. Is it thus surprising that since independence the most intense wars that have been fought in Kenya either between persons, between communities or with the state has been over land! Be it the Shifta War! The Tindinyo Wars! Or be it the infamous land and tribal clashes stretching from Mt. Elgon, through Burnt Forest, Kuresoi, Sotik, Trans Mara, Wajir to Likoni? Or more recently the post election violence of 2007/8? So at independence we missed the purpose for which we sought MADARAKA for with all we had including our lives! Do you agree with me? That what we fought for is not what we “won”? LEADERSHIP But this is not all. The other reason we fought so hard was so that we are able to lead ourselves and determine our own destiny. That we were slighted by the colonialist imposing leaders on us using the church, their side kick collaborators and homeguard services. That we were subjected to forceful authority sometimes perpetrated by our own brothers (I do not have records of any women!) Our forefather revolted against imposed, oppressive and insensitive leadership and non consideration and input from the native Kenyans in the same. So when we got MADARAKA the foremost thing that should have come to the surface was the raw meaning the word MADARAKA being power, authority and sovereignty. That by getting MADARAKA we should have got the Power and Authority with all the ingredients that we missed under colonization! These were to include now intentionally identifying and nurturing our own acceptable leadership that rules us with our consent for our well being. It thus follows that good leadership; inferring good use of our Madaraka (power and authority) should have been a national priority to drive our self determination. Is it any wonder that bad and or suspect leadership has generously punctuated the nearly 50 years of the independent country Kenya? That most of the problems of this country can easily be traced to leadership of the day; be it violence, scandals, assassinations, corruption or base crime. Seemingly leadership was not supposed to be a major concern for the independent Kenya as disease, ignorance and poverty would sort them out! I hold that had the matters of land and leadership been in this speech and by focus thus a priority for our independent motherland, Kenya would be a truly a great country and definitely a far better place to live in than where we are. What do you say?