Things have been happening very fast in the United Kingdom. First it was the breaking of the news that the News of the World (NOW) tabloid had been hacking people’s phone communication.
This one event has given birth to a number of happenings in different sectors of United Kingdom’s society. The first was the shutting down of NOW. In the police force, two senior officers, the London police chief Paul Stephenson and the anti-terrorism head John Yates have had to quit for being mentioned as accomplices in crime.
Two senior executives associated with Rupert Murdoch’s News International organization have quit and one has been arrested. Rebekah Brooks resigned and was later arrested by Police for questioning, while Les Hinton quit his position in the media empire.
For Rupert and his son James Murdoch, who is said to be his heir apparent, they had to call off their bid for a complete take over of Pay TV BSkyB. At the same time, the two were forced to eat humble pie and apologise over what happened in their media outlet.
Closer home in Nigeria, another related event happened. British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to cancel his four-nation tour of Africa to go back home and deal with the crisis brought about by the scandal at NOW, which “has shaken Britons’ trust in the press, police and politicians”. The prime minister himself is facing questions over his judgment in appointing former NOW editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief. This is said to be the worst crisis of his leadership.
What do we as Kenyans learn from all this? One of the greatest lessons is about providing leadership and being on top of things. The Prime Minister of the UK had to cancel an already scheduled tour of four African nations to go back home to face the parliament and give reassurance to the voters who put him in office. Worthy of note here is the fact that the scandal took place in a private enterprise (of course it also touched on government in terms of police services), but he saw it fit to go back home and deal with the situation. Some of the people who have had to leave their offices are pleading innocence of any crimes committed but they are taking responsibility for what happened under their watch. This is as things should be.
In Kenya, taking responsibility for actions that have brought suffering to millions of citizens is an unheard of thing. Recently in government, the minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta announced that the government had lost more than 4 billion shillings meant for primary school education. This is a colossal sum of money by any standards.
But irony of ironies is that the minister in charge of the ministry is still in office, fighting what he calls political enemies who are out to derail him politically. A simple issue of accountability is now being turned political, like many issues in Kenya. The minister’s conscious has not pricked yet to make him see the folly of continuing in that office, even if he is innocent. Stepping out of office is not an admission of guilt but a show of remorseful for what has happened while one was in charge of a ministry or department.
In stark contrast to the UK situation, the Kenyan president has not seen it fit even to comment on the issue. Recently, he accompanied the said minister to a function in the minister’s constituency. What are ordinary men and women to say when even the appointing officer does not comment on an issue that has made development partners reconsider their disbursement of much needed funds for education?
This kind of laid- back leadership is what some people have praised of the president of Kenya. But the questions is, how do the citizens of this country employ a president and when there is theft in government he refuses to even talk about the issue and then people say that is a style of leadership? Refusing to deal with pertinent issues is not a style of leadership; it is simply abdication of duty!
Think of scandals like the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing which have taken place in the last two decades in this country and up to this time no one has taken responsibility for the suffering of the Kenyans and neither has anyone been jailed for those crimes.
Recently, we have even seen people who are accused of masterminding the post-election violence that took place in Kenya after the 2007 elections running all over the country saying that they want to lead this country. Where do these people even get the guts to face Kenyans and tell them that they want to lead them even before they have cleared their names from these accusations?
I believe that the events in the UK have many lessons for us in Kenya. They have just shown us what taking responsibility is and what providing leadership and hope in times of crisis needs to be.
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