Bomas meeting clear sign country ready to confront its demons

If nothing else happens after the Wednesday launch of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report at Bomas of Kenya, it would be too bad for the country. But the whole process would not have been in vain!

Of course, things will happen subsequent to and because of the launch. A national conversation has just begun and people are no longer speculating the report. Other than one seemingly vain parliamentary leader who was heard complaining about the list of speakers at the event - this despite the fact that he was a speaker - no one is talking about who was and who wasn’t consulted in the compilation of the report.

There’s a national unanimity that the effort and resources deployed in developing the BBI report did not go to waste. It was a “noble” move initiated by noble leaders for a noble nation.

And that is a good thing. Better still is the process that got us where we are.

It was, for instance, exciting just to hear how two political antagonists came together to discuss how they can bury their differences and forge a common path going forward, soon after a publically acrimonious election,  from their own mouths! We heard from President Uhuru Kenyatta and his hitherto sworn enemy Raila Odinga how they gulped gallons of tea over hours just trying to break the ice between them before the real talk begun!

“It’s under those circumstances (of acrimony) that counsels of goodwill prevailed and we ended up  me and the President having a conversation. It took 19 hours and it was not easy. Cause we had called each other all sorts of names. After all those long hours of deliberations we agreed that we had something we could put together,” Raila said of the first pre- handshake meeting as the nation and world followed the proceedings of the launch ceremony.

Given the prevailing hard times, even hearing the near comical recollections of the two supreme leaders that many look up for inspiration, is a therapeutic. The laughter that greeted the speeches was evidence that a country generally feels good when its leaders speak in one voice. But it tells something more. That we are blessed with, albeit a few, leaders who can bite the bullet, swallow their pride and compromise for the sake of the nation.

The camaraderie that was exhibited at Bomas and other places in the wake of the handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, knowing where we have come from, is a global pace setter! We should celebrate it.

That brings me back to the opening line of this piece. That even if nothing happens subsequent to Bomas November 27, 2019, there is something worth remembering and being proud of. In a very long time, we had leaders from all the political outfits in the country gathered together not to count their votes after an elections, not to woe voters to their individual courses, and not to exhibit their oratory skills, but to signal and compare notes for a better future of the country.

What a bright day it was! What a promise we have as a country!