Kenya power nearly ruined my day and ultimately my plans for the week by switching off power just as Auma Obama was ushering in her brother President Barrack Obama to address the nation, Kenya in his last speech before flying to Addis Ababa for an AU meeting tomorrow.
I caught the speech half way and as expected Barrack Obama was honest and did not hesitate to stir the hornets nest by touching on the issue of equity in Kenya.He pointed out how Kenya's society was imbalanced and the fact that the politicks of patronage and ethinicity was responsible. Case in point, regions which have for a long period had a different ideology with the ruling regime have always lagged behind in terms of development.
I guess it must have gotten very uncomfortable to the leaders present(opposition and government) as evidenced by the amount of twitching in their sits, when Obama bluntly declared that Kenyan politicks, in as long as they are based on tribal affiliations, are primitive and a recipe for disaster. He called Kenyan politicks "a lack of imagination". This was a punch in the nose to the bigots who are our leaders more so, the guys in the opposition.
One statememt that caught my attention is when Obama got into his witty element started speaking about his/our ancestors or Kenya founding fathers, Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga and his father Obama snr and thiose that came before them. It has been claimed that Kenyatta Snr. sacked Obama snr from his job and ensured that he lived in oblivition, a claim which might be true, as this was very common in Kenya back in the day. Obama in this statement seemed to suggest karma, wittingly and in another veiled fashion suggested that whatever Kenyatta snr. tried to suppress was unsupressable and the fact that Obama jnr. is now president of the USA is a living proof of the fact.I wish not to trivialize Obama's speech, but in this one he came out as someone who had been bitter of his father being sent to oblivion and his Luo community being marginalized for opposing the government of the day. Atleast he got that out of his chest and advised that we should not focus on the dark corners of our past but to a brighter future.
He reminded everyone that we are living in a world borrowed from our children and there was a need to make sacrifices, just as our forefathers did to make the future better for our children. This statement was very relevant especially in relation to Kenya's heritage. Kenyans need to make sacrifices to protect our heritage especially upholding progressive cultural practices and shunning retrogressive ones such as female genital mutilation and early marriages.
Obama had organized his speech into pillars but unfortunately i was not able to get everything due to erratic power supply since we suffered to blackouts/outages during his speech.
All in all Obama's message was that Africa's destiny belongs to Africans and only them can liberate themselves from the perils of corruption,negative ethnicity, bigotry etc. Diversity is strength, equity and equitable sharing of resources in our society is key. Obama exhibited a grasp of Kenya's issues and reiterated in the umpteenth time that United States of America was Kenya's friend and not enemy.
I caught the speech half way and as expected Barrack Obama was honest and did not hesitate to stir the hornets nest by touching on the issue of equity in Kenya.He pointed out how Kenya's society was imbalanced and the fact that the politicks of patronage and ethinicity was responsible. Case in point, regions which have for a long period had a different ideology with the ruling regime have always lagged behind in terms of development.
I guess it must have gotten very uncomfortable to the leaders present(opposition and government) as evidenced by the amount of twitching in their sits, when Obama bluntly declared that Kenyan politicks, in as long as they are based on tribal affiliations, are primitive and a recipe for disaster. He called Kenyan politicks "a lack of imagination". This was a punch in the nose to the bigots who are our leaders more so, the guys in the opposition.
One statememt that caught my attention is when Obama got into his witty element started speaking about his/our ancestors or Kenya founding fathers, Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga and his father Obama snr and thiose that came before them. It has been claimed that Kenyatta Snr. sacked Obama snr from his job and ensured that he lived in oblivition, a claim which might be true, as this was very common in Kenya back in the day. Obama in this statement seemed to suggest karma, wittingly and in another veiled fashion suggested that whatever Kenyatta snr. tried to suppress was unsupressable and the fact that Obama jnr. is now president of the USA is a living proof of the fact.I wish not to trivialize Obama's speech, but in this one he came out as someone who had been bitter of his father being sent to oblivion and his Luo community being marginalized for opposing the government of the day. Atleast he got that out of his chest and advised that we should not focus on the dark corners of our past but to a brighter future.
He reminded everyone that we are living in a world borrowed from our children and there was a need to make sacrifices, just as our forefathers did to make the future better for our children. This statement was very relevant especially in relation to Kenya's heritage. Kenyans need to make sacrifices to protect our heritage especially upholding progressive cultural practices and shunning retrogressive ones such as female genital mutilation and early marriages.
Obama had organized his speech into pillars but unfortunately i was not able to get everything due to erratic power supply since we suffered to blackouts/outages during his speech.
All in all Obama's message was that Africa's destiny belongs to Africans and only them can liberate themselves from the perils of corruption,negative ethnicity, bigotry etc. Diversity is strength, equity and equitable sharing of resources in our society is key. Obama exhibited a grasp of Kenya's issues and reiterated in the umpteenth time that United States of America was Kenya's friend and not enemy.
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