When do you decide that it’s time to buy a new pair of shoes? An MP I asked this question said he buys new shoes whenever he buys a new suit. A pair to every suit, he said was his wardrobe motto.
Someone told me he buys a new pair whenever unexpected amount of money such as a bonus at work goes his way. A lady told me she buys a new pair every two months.
Another told me that the question wasn’t applicable to him because al his shoes were second-hand and so it wasn’t quite correct for him to say the he bought new shoes. Eyeing my own shoes, he asked me when I buy new shoes myself.
I buy new shoes, I told him, when the newest pair starts looking worse than the previous one. When I start considering the shoe I had replaced better than the one that replaced it, I told the fellow, then that’s the time I buy a new one. Sometimes, I return to the shoe I had replaced until the shoe I replaced it with starts looking better and that I again return to it until it also starts looking worse off than the other one.
Laugh at me but that’s where we’ll soon be heading to as a country when it comes to replacing leaders unless magic happens and we come up with a formula for nurturing leaders.
For with president Mwai Kibaki poised to retain his seat, there’s no one on the horizon who appears equal to the task of presidency once Kibaki calls it quits after, from all indications, another five years.
Not to worry, someone assured me when I expressed these fears to him. God, he went on, was still with Kenyans because he has kept Moi as healthy as ever and so in case there’s no good replacement for Kibaki, then we can always ask Moi to take over the steering wheel of the country.
When we were putting Kibaki in power in 2002, we were seeing Moi as an old shoe that wasn’t decent enough to be put on by any self-respecting country.
Now if there’re some people who are now considering Moi for the job of presidency again, what does that say about the country? If returning to the old shoes means that one is degenerating dress-wise, then considering Moi to state house says the same thing about our country’s leadership, simply that there’re no leaders around fit enough to become presidents.
Imagine Kibaki who only months ago was considered by some to be a below average president is now considered a better option to all aspirants for his job. In other words the aspirants are below below average.
And not without reason, for if the blatant glutton for power Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka is anything to go by, anyone would be forgiven for rating Kibaki and Moi so highly.
Raila and Kalonzo are now like the animals that will go for each other’s neck the moment they set eyes on each other. Luckily, Kalonzo seems to have realized that and now is even asking ODM to keep the two of them as far apart as possible until the party comes up with a candidate.
Raila on the other hand is saying that they can still be kept together. Whether Raila’s stand is informed by the knowledge that he will emerge better off in the dog-tear-dog fight with Kalonzo or Kalonzo’s stand is informed by fear of emerging worse off, both are right in their own ways as to stay together might lead to a healing of relationships while staying apart may avert a confrontation between the two’s followers.
Instead of lessening, the differences between the two are increasing. These two, let’s face it, will never work together comfortably. Let them go their own ways and then bring together their different parties in a coalition if need be.
As things stand now, the two are fighting over a plate of food that’s enough for each but doesn’t seem so because it’s in one plate. Why not put it in bowls with a bowl for each?
They would then have no one but themselves to blame if the food in their bowls spilled as they want to now spill it from the plate. But with the now differing duo at daggers drawn, it might even be more dangerous for them to eat from different bowls as they might seek to poison each other.
One plate for both would therefore be the safer option as no one would dare poison it unless they were suicidal. But would they hear? These warlords of ODM?
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