Why BBI report must resonate with Kenyans – Weekly Citizen

The unveiling of the Building Bridges Initiative report last Wednesday November 27 2019 by president Uhuru Kenyatta and former prime minister Raila Odinga at the Bomas of Kenya should reverberate in the minds of all Kenyans as to what their aspirations in future holds for them if not to chart a new political dispensation for the country.

This comes at a time when Kenya has for many years been torn between the lines because of selfish political interests, emerging differences within the ruling class, which did not bring Kenyans together as a people. This does not help us as a country that needs a focused destiny – to unite its people.

It is clear in our minds of the events that happened at the Russia Provincial Hospital in Kisumu, where the founding father of this nation, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, president Uhuru’s father was stoned in 1969 by people believed to be supporters of his vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Since then, there has been no love lost between the two royal families – the Kenyattas and the Odingas – ideally premised on ideological differences. Whereas the Odingas were believed to be leaning towards the East at the height of the cold war, the Kenyattas were said to be pro West – Europe and the US.

At that time in point, the political temperatures in Luo Nyanza were at boiling point, this is after Raila’s father, Jaramogi, resigned as Kenyatta’s vice president due to the then conflicting political differences with the assassination of Tom Mboya and Argwings Kodhek, then leading Luo politicians taking centre stage.

The enmity between the two leading families has lasted for over 49 years down the line which had been inherited by Jomo’s child Uhuru who is the current president and Jaramogi’s son, Raila (2008-2013) and leader of opposition 2013 to date.

It is because of this animosity that threatened to tear Kenya apart that the duo-Uhuru and Raila opted to come to their senses, their father’s ideological opinion notwithstanding, to stitch the wounds that had afflicted the country for many years.

Resulting from the events of that fateful day in 1969 in which life was lost, it has taken the sons of Kenyatta and Odinga to realise that the essentiality of building a unified nation for all Kenyans is more of significance than their own personal ethos and tribal hegemony.

Uhuru and Raila

In order to wipe out the dark history of their fathers past, and to bring inclusivity in the management of state affairs, shun politics of hatred and build a united Kenya, all Kenyans thus must support this initiative for it means for the good of all Kenyans.

This is the opportunity to open the doors and the windows to shun negative behaviours that have bedeviled this country for years, a new dawn of a trajectory to the future.

Let Kenyans not think that the proposed changes in the management of the affairs of this country are those of Uhuru and Kenyatta alone. The key word here is inclusivity so that the final draft becomes a people’s documents as the people will approve it so that it is owned by them.

Let us not divide our people because of personalised political interests. Kenyans will decide their own destiny for the future including that of their unborn grandchildren children.

Perhaps, we ought to borrow a leaf from Tanzanian Foreign Affairs minister, Palamagamba Kabudi’s moving speech during the unveiling of the report. Kabudi, in whom we see a future shining star on the continent, was emphatic.

Quoting Tanzania’s founding father Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, he emphasised the three sources from which Nyerere based his theory of Ujamaa which was that since aid for development from developed nations was not forthcoming, hence the burden for development must be borne by citizens. This made sense, a factor which was amplified by ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi in his speech on the economy