Until we answer this question, we will go nowhere. We will grow by default, by virtue of being part of the globalized economy, but poverty will deepen and its associated social problems will worsen. To understand what causes a nation, any nation to be poor, you must first understand the constituent parts that make up that nation, and how those parts interact to affect the overall level of wealth, or lack thereof.

By these constituent parts I do not mean tribes. The life of the Nation consists of various overlapping fields. These include the Cultural, Social, Intellectual, Economic, Religious, Political, Artistic and Scientific fields among many others. Wealth, or the lack of it, in any one of these fields has a direct impact upon the level of wealth in all others, and of the nation as a whole.In many of these fields Kenya is blessed. Forty two tribes make for an incredibly rich culture. Many of our social structures, like churches, schools, and co-operatives, are flourishing. Our human capital is determined, ambitious, increasingly well educated and (crucially for international trade) English-speaking. We are extremely well located as the leading point of entry into a phenomenally resource-rich continent. Our nation is aesthetically beautiful and geographically diverse.

We have, undoubtedly, a lot going for us. In one field though,we are sorely lacking – the field of politics, and the poverty in this field is having a direct and harmful impact upon the wealth of the Nation as a whole. Politics is about the competition of ideas. Don’t believe that it is anything else. It is not a game of numbers, it is much more than that. Fundamentally politics is about the debate on the way forward. Tutafuata njia gani?

Sadly in Kenya, we have put this debate to bed. We have killed it. We have collectively come to an agreement, and we are much the worse for it. That agreement is that Kenya shall follow the path of parochial factionalism. That is Kenya’s big idea. That’s our contribution to the world of political science, of philosophical thought. We here in Kenya are going to continually segment our interests into ever-smaller groupings until we degenerate into a primitive ‘nasty and brutish’ man-eat-man society. You know that this is already happening, you can see it all around you. At what point did Kenya stop having a debate with itself? At what point did we decide that we have nothing better to hope for than the faint possibility that a tribesman of ours may come to some position of power and perhaps throw a few crumbs in our direction? Is that the limit of our ambition?

What Kenya needs, desperately, right now, is to reopen this, the grand debate. Where are we going? That is the question. Who leads the Nation pales into insignificance beside this question. This question is of fundamental importance, and how we answer it affects everything, our entire destiny. For example, we could decide that what we as a nation want is self-sufficiency, and that we want it in 5 years. Well if this is what we decide then we will focus all our energies on matters such as food, water and energy security. Alternatively, we could decide that we want growth at all costs, in which case we could pursue a policy of rapid heavy industrialisation, leveraging the low costs of our labour, much like Eastern Europe did in the 1950’s.

Growth we would achieve, though the cost we would pay could be heavy. Not one politician attempting to disguise themselves as a leader has stood up and expressed the need for this debate, with perhaps the exception of Koigi Wamwere and Wangari Maathai. One who is arguing for equitable distribution of resources as the road to follow, the other leaning more towards resource protection. You may not agree with these two arguments, but at least they are ideas, freely floated and competing for a following in our much-fabled ‘expanded’ democratic space.

Don’t be fooled. Every single politician who speaks of tribal blocks, who declares the war of the ‘game of numbers’ is actually arguing for the same idea, be they Luo, Luhya, Meru, Maasai or whatever. They are proposing the idea that ‘there isn’t enough to go around so we better get as close to the centre of power as possible so that at least we can have some sufficient part of the little that there is.’ This is an exceptionally negative idea, it is what my teachers would have called a ‘very poor idea’, and the dominance of this ‘very poor idea’ has a direct effect upon us. It is the major cause of the overall poverty of this nation in several other fields and as a whole.

The reality is that if we Kenyans are seduced by this poor idea then we must be ourselves poor thinkers, who therefore deserve to live in poverty. Remind yourself of that when you go to cast your vote later this year.