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A first-time visitor would be forgiven for thinking that Kenya is in an electioneering period, despite it being yet to recover from the tumultuous 2017 elections.
The zeal and exuberance with which politics has been centralised to every narrative is baffling.
The political elite are busy forming alliances and drumming up support for their preferred candidates in the next election — three years away!
Mugo Kibati, a former Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat (VDS) director-general, at one time asked Kenyans to stop politicking and spend more of their time in economic pursuits.
But the advice seems to have fallen on deaf ears as the political landscape witnesses realignments for 2022.
Naturally, it would be expected that the season immediately after an election would be time for reflection and soul searching as a nation, notably on areas of weaknesses for purposes of improvement.
Endless politics has instead cast a shadow over everything else.
The narrative that has captured the nation’s psyche is that of the 2022 Uhuru Succession.
Every move by the political class is placed under the microscope, and political experts are brought in to give their opinion on which way the wind is blowing and try to predict the aftermath of such moves.
President Kenyatta, while speaking at Chatham House in Britain in April last year, was categorical that constant political bickering creates an environment that negates gains in social and economic fronts.
Inasmuch as democracy is considered healthy, too much competition at times drowns out the voices of the ordinary people and leads to overlooking of their needs.
The question then arises on how other democracies have risen beyond competitive politics to issue-based politics, especially when faced with succession. What can Kenya learn from such mature and stable democracies?
Focus should be on the ‘Big Four Agenda’, the economic blueprint mapped out by President Kenyatta as the pillars of his government during his second and final term.
However, it’s becoming apparent that there is divergence of purpose within the same government, with one side focusing on 2022 politics and the other supposedly concerned with growth and development.
The media’s role in the culture of constant politicking as a country cannot be overlooked.
Primarily, the media is of importance in nation building and development through provision of a collective means of communication by which the populace is kept abreast of information concerning the day to day happenings in society.
It sets and manages the pace of discussion and actively coordinates information flow between the government and the public and vice versa.
Citizens need to play their role by providing checks and balances whenever the government does not act properly.
They should seek to be more informed on issues that affect them and question events as they unfold.
The political class appears to have mastered the mind of mwananchi and knows which stings to pull to mesmerise them to glaze over issues that require deeper introspection.
Like the Pied Piper, the political class has hypnotised the collective mind of the nation and is slowly leading it towards a cliff.
What will it take for the nation to snap out of this daze?
Ms Ronoh, an administrator at the University of Kabianga, is a leadership and governance PhD student.
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