Report
After the president, his excellency Uhuru Kenyatta and right hon, Raila Odinga yesterday gave us the BBi report; there was a mixed reaction. One conversation is we should read the document and not rely on politicians.
I am reading the document, 97% to see if it offers any good solution, and with a 3% bias. And before you take everything I say from now with bias, lemme address the bias I have.
I feel like the relationship we share with the current regime is one of the oppressors vs. the oppressed. The administration has intentionally done so much that directly or indirectly made Kenyans’ lives harder than it was before. Loan interests are growing bigger than the wage bill, high unemployment rate, especially for the youths, a very unfavorable business environment for those who start small and don’t have fathers who gift us capitals with more than six digits.
Now tell me, how can the oppressor change the law to favor the oppressed? How can the oppressor know what’s ailing the oppressed? I may be wrong, but the enslaved did have much of a say in how their owners did with them. The owners used the Bible and the law to make sure the slaves remained enslaved.
I agree we should all read the document. But we should be out here dismissing the sentiments of those who chose not to, they have their reasons for doing so, and their opinions on the said report is as worthy as anyone else’s. They can question the authors of the document, its purpose, and its beneficiaries. Why can’t we allow people to question the report without reading it? Even the Bible gets questioned by people who have little knowledge about it, and it’s the word of God. The conversation should be on what Kenyans need and not what they lose if they oppose the BBi.
Onto the report, a lot has been said since the handshake happened, the bbi initiative happened. They have used words like inclusivity to make us feel like we’re all being called to the table, and I can’t get that word out of my head. Who is getting included? Whenever politicians start talking in mystical terms, as Kenyans, we should beware. Most of the time, they try to disguise and excuse real suffering by wrapping it with favorable words.
In the words of Mwalimu Wandia, ” reports are fetish of governance, their job is is to give an air of respectability to the political class when it wants to an action or avoid it.”
I am reading the report, but I’m not expecting to find much that will change the lives of the normal mwananchi. Maybe just some bites to keep us excited until ’22, and then we welcome back the imperial president with his minions of appointees and much more extensive control over the arms of government.
In the coming few weeks, if we question anything around other aspects of the report other than what’s in it, we will be told to read the report, and our questions lack relevance to the issue.
May God help us all.