Turning Kenya into Singapore a pipe dream

Of late, we have heard Singapore mentioned numerous times by no less than President William Ruto, ostensibly as a beacon that we should aim at as we crawl on all fours towards some far off light known as development.

First things first: we are not even crawling in the right direction: Methinks we have been making huge efforts in engaging the reverse gear.

We first need to disengage the reverse gear, stop the vehicle called Kenya, and then decide where we want to go.

Because I don’t think we should even be talking about an African version of the Asian miracle when we have all the fundamentals upside down. 

Politics drive our every decision making process. We talk about cutting costs but it’s mere rhetoric no one takes seriously.

We are more concerned about currying favours rather than the hard work of moving the country forward.

I looked at the characters who escorted President Ruto to the UN General Assembly and I could not help ask: Who are these people?

What value are they adding to the foreign policy discourse expected of those attending?

Do they even understand the nuances of the global issue at play here? Can they understand the dynamics of, say, US’s support for Israel as the latter completely annihilates an entire nation, children and all? 

Or perhaps they were just there for the joyride, trolling the streets of New York at night and taking selfies for their social media accounts. I don’t even think some of them even knew what they were doing in New York.

They were there perhaps as a sort of political affirmative action, so that some hapless villager will say: “aaah, our man is now regarded highly by the powers that be that he is eating from the high table”, never once questioning when even some crumbs will come their way. 

There is one particular CS who looked so primordial with his ill-fitting attire that I am sure must have cost a bomb - he is known for expensive things but not taste.

I believe the government has many foreign policy experts who would have been better placed to attend the summit rather than some fellows whose claim to fame is their political shenanigans of jumping from one ship to another, depending on which side the wind is blowing. 

This song about us becoming another Singapore had me going through my library for Lee Kuan Yew’s book, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, which should serve as a bible and a must read for third world leaders.

The book, ‘From Third World to First’, is a detailed story of how an impoverished country can turn into one of the richest in the world in a mere generation.

Lee made strategic decisions and implemented policies that fundamentally reshaped the nation from a miserable port with no natural resources into a thriving global financial hub.  

Singapore’s survival, he quickly realised, depended on a rapid economic development model, stability, and social harmony.

His first major priority was establishing a strong, disciplined government capable of implementing long-term policies.

He realised that leadership is not a popularity contest (or a beauty contest as one politician put down our own Kalonzo Musyoka); it is about rolling your sleeves and delivering tangible results. 

He focused on building relationships with those with the wherewithal to invest; focused on negotiating favourable terms with trading partners and put emphasis on industrialisation since the country had no land for agriculture. 

“What we have achieved shows that we can build a nation from scratch,” he says in the book. As a country, we are lucky that we are not starting from scratch. We have a foundation to build on.

But we have a huge stumbling block, a heavy weight anchoring us to the bottom of the poverty sea, a monster munching away at the very fabric of our society: corruption.

Until we deal with this monster, every effort to move our status to anywhere near Singapore’s today will end in premium tears.

-The writer is a communications consultant