peace finally comes to Kenya

After months of anxiety, The Kenyan people have something to rejoice about as President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on the twenty eighth of February 2008, signed an agreement on how they would share power. The agreement created the post of an executive prime minister and outlined the procedure in which the prime minister would be elected which was to be enacted by a constitutional amendment by parliament. This agreement marks the first step in restoring sanity in Kenya and restoring peace and a hope for social and economic development.

The Koffi Annan led talks had deliberated on a 4 point strategy on how to return Kenya back to normalcy. By the creation of the post of the prime minister who is to be elected from the party with majority seats in parliament, the posts of two deputy prime ministers from different parties and an agreement to split cabinet positions based on the party representation in parliament, the Annan led team had resolved three of the four items on returning peace in the country. Now the mediation team has been left with the last item and most convoluted item which aims to find long term solutions to the political crisis that occurred after the disputed December elections that sparked country wide protests and violence that left over 1000 people dead and over 300,000 displaced.

As Koffi Annan spoke hope and confidence was restored to embark on the task of nation building. For the investors who had held back their investments, students who were undecided about their education and families about their plans for the future, the Koffi Annan announcement meant that Kenyans could ‘unpause’ the button that had brought everything to a standstill and now make long term decisions. The amount of socio-economic activity that the country will see in the next two months will be unprecedented. With all the current international media focus on the country, this is the time to be in Kenya. The crisis has birthed an opportunity never seen in the past. An era of cooperation, synergy and exploiting the country’s full potential.

But as much as that might be so in the economic front, Kenya must deal with the social issues that still lie in the country. The politicians have played their part to solve the political crisis, now it our time to solve the social crisis that lies deeply entrenched in our hearts. We must deal with this issue by open dialogue to get to the roots and find ways to deal with the problem once and for all. Each one of us must support the Annan led talks in addressing the forth point in the mediation talks which is finding long term solutions to the current problem. It is very likely as the proverbs says “out of sight out of mind” that we shall forget all that has happened as we go on with our normal lives and catch up on lost time. Somehow, we believe like the ostrich that dug its head in the sand, that as long as we don’t see the problem it does not exist forgetting that we have our whole bodies exposed to the problem. Five years is not far from now, even a small crack in the coalition, let alone a fallout, is enough to take us back to the post election violence. We must continue to take proactive steps to bring about social healing which include

1.Going out of our way to talk to, visit, trade with and socialize with other people from other communities.

2.Stop all the negative talk about other tribes and also superior and inferior speech.

3.Continuing to take every opportunity to discuss and find positive ways to solve the problem.

4.continuing to advocate for social change that will reduce the poverty gap and other constitutional changes

5.continuing to advocate for social change that will reduce the poverty gap and other constitutional changes

At this juncture, I wish to apologize to anyone that I offended in the articles “a call to reason for our country Kenya” the intention of the articles was to provoke open discussion by laying things bare. I am a strong believer in openness and freedom of expression and dialogue as a first step to social healing. Unfortunately to some that article portrayed me as a strongly pro my tribe or anti my tribe depending on which camp one belonged since, the country was so divided at the time. That was never the intention of the article. In fact through it I have realized my own bias and intend to change a number of things including never to mention tribes in any article. In the same spirit I hope that each one of us can move out of our camps and come to a middle ground and try see things from the other persons opinion. Let us be objective in our discussions and stop this selfish way of thinking where we put our personal interests first. Lets put the interests of others first.

I strongly do believe that Kenya is a model nation for the world to emulate in the way we handle issues and pull ourselves out of catastrophic situations. Now let as show the world that we can use that strength to pull ourselves to greater heights of social cohesion and equality and economic prosperity. Kenya we Can! Yes twaweza Kenya!

magu nguru

www.twawezakenya.com