While negative things happen, there are positives at the national and international levels that encourage people. South Korea’s Moon Jae-In is among those that are smiling because of overcoming challenges. Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta could also be smiling, but he faces many obstacles to his Big Four dream.
Kenya seems to be at the receiving end of isolationism and of being thrown back to the 1970s when it was surrounded by pseudo socialist states or tyrannical showmen. Its insistence on being pro-West, pro-Israel, and capitalistic at a time when ideologues calling themselves ‘progressives’ dominated the region made it an isolated state. Irredentist Somalia led the onslaught on territorial grab, Ethiopia shifted its governance to brutal Marxism, Sudan continued to generate refugees, Uganda’s Idi Amin kept his neighbours on the edges and Tanzania closed borders with Kenya to protect failing Ujamaa experiments from Kenya’s predatory capitalism.
There now appears to be a repeat of the 1970s in 2019, with a slight difference. With unprecedented open split in the Cabinet and the Jubilee Party, critics see an opportunity to delegitimise the President. Implying that there is power vacuum, they call on Uhuru to violate the Constitution by getting out of office before his time. The persistence, through select media and political personalities with axes to grind, plays into the hands of hostile extra-continental forces. It challenges Uhuru’s leadership skills to pull the country through.
The grabbers
He has to contend with new neighbourhood hostility. Ethiopia is in another reform spree, replacing Kenya as the regional peace maker and economic hub. The Sudans continue to generate refugees. Uganda has turned trading tables on Kenya and Tanzania has developed new disdain for Kenyans. It is Somalia, however, that once again leads the attack by claiming Kenya’s territorial waters.
