So I've been thinking about what are the major impediments to our take-off as a successful country and I wanted to share my thoughts and see what fellow Wazuans think are the biggest obstacles to the success of the Kenyan nation. Here is what I think:

1. A Corrupted and Unserious Media.

The Kenyan media is firmly in the pockets of politicians who pay to decide what is shown to Kenyans as the most important news of the day.

The unfortunate result is that substantive matters are not given the due attention that they deserve. So we've gotten used to day in day out headlines of "This politician said this, the other said that".

The media is also too focused on the unserious e.g. radio stations are mostly focused on talking about sex and affairs etc. This focus on what could be considered as "junk" content leaves Kenyans minds much poorer and distracted.

If Kenyan media was a person, they'd be that person who is endlessly consumed by an unimportant matter e.g. gossip, trying to bed as many as possible, etc and can't seem to concentrate for 5 minutes on important stuff.

2. Lack of Localism (A Power Vacuum between Ordinary Citizens and Top Heavy Governance)
There is a big chasm between the citizen and the control and use of state power and resources. This leads to a certain feeling of disenfranchisement among the citizens. There is too much power concentrated at the top (mostly at the hands of leaders who have little connection and interaction with the people).

In the old days, every village had its baraza or council of elders who would discuss the important problems or issues of the village then make certain decisions/actions at the village level. The gap left by the end of this social organization means that people's voices are not properly heard. We need to figure out a way to better organize ourselves from the bottom up like in the old days.

If we had proper local representation even in the cities, with the proper involvement of residents and businesses located in a small enough area that have the control of their location in major matters, we would likely have more substantive action e.g. collection of rubbish, crime reduction etc in stead of the top-down approach.

Right now as a resident of a certain neighborhood, we struggle to deal with collection of rubbish in our area, reduction of crime, repairing broken roads, water problems etc because we don't have a good way to organize ourselves. Resident Associations try to play in this space but most areas in Kenya are unable to have this level of self organization which means that we all complain about these things but don't have the collective organization to do something about it.

If there was an easier way for residents to engage with each other, there would be big improvements as citizens begin to feel empowered.

Devolution has helped reduce this problem but it has not yet solved the main problem of social organization from the bottom up. We need those village barazas to really start dealing with local issues. We also need a certain portion of our taxes to be local tax so that we have resources to do stuff at a local level.

3. Scarcity Mentality & Individualism
The following are all signs of a scarcity mentality:
a) Corruption & Hoarding Up unnecessary levels of wealth - people steal what they don't need and hoard up resources that benefit them little but would have had major collective benefit e.g. from building schools, roads and hospitals. It's a psychological illusion that many have and makes them short sighted to realize that they are harming the collective future by engaging in this problem.
b) Business people with resources seldom share those resources or invest them in society e..g through creating public benefit resources such as libraries or museums. The sharing economy e.g. Uber and Airbnb and such has shown that platforms which share value to a large number of people can create more value than if they were hoarded. The instinct of most Kenyans is to hoard whatever resources or advantage you may have even though this is not value maximizing.

4. Poor Law Enforcement
A problem associated with "Lack of Localism" and Lack of a sense of citizen ownership in the goverment is poor law enforcement. This can actually create an existential crisis for a country as it leads to more and more criminal elements getting into top levels of government over time which is likely to create a cascading effect that could lead to the takeover of a country by a Mafia like cartel. Kenya is unfortunately headed that way already. Poor law enforcement is what makes it difficult to do business, enforce business contracts, increase crime etc. Solving this problem would unlock tremendous value when people know that disputes will be heard and judged fairly and quickly and that the law enforcement will protect the rights of citizens.

The Kenyan Voter.

Jomo Kenyatta cursed Kenya by introducing and encouraging tribalism, corruption, land grabbing and other vices. That chap actually despised politicians who weren't thieves. He set a precedent that has proven impossible to reverse. Tribalism and corruption are two biggest impediments.

Tribalism means that people will support and vote for their own no matter how corrupt or incompetent.

It means that people cannot uplift themselves or better their lives by voting an issue based leader. We only elect tribal chiefs. The key to getting elected in Kenya is not to be a good president. The key is to build tribal blocs.

Kenya is cursed in that only people who encourage tribalism and corruption have had a chance to lead. Where would we be if we had a president like Pinto, Oginga, JM, Kaggia, Mboya, Muliro ?

We have had 57 years of independence and no good leader has taken helm. The country is cursed by its own people.

Kenyatta actually lived in London for decades so he witnessed what a properly functioning advanced country can be. he could have taken those lessons and applied them here. Instead when he came back and took power, his primary focus was to ammass as much wealth for himself.

History teacher failed our current generation. They made it look like the world started in 1963. All these problems have been around for centuries.

East africa region was not the most densely populated area for longest period apart from the coastal region. How were you going to develop if you didn't have people clustered together trading and exchanging ideas, goods and services?

Current generation may not even remember sometime in the late 80s you would drive 30 km in the dustbowl without seeing a single human being. Ngong was a very remote place where people disappeared back then. Places like Lamu, Turkana felt like some mythical lands. Githurai in early 90s was a gichagi no elec, no water, very few people just empty grassland as far as eye could see.

Stop blaming leaders it is only you who can uplift yourself. Work hard, produce wealth and kids you can cater for.

Short and sweet