This can’t be scripted! It is hard to describe the events of last Wednesday; the mayhem in the country during the demonstrations was simply at another level. By the end of the day, lives had been lost, property destroyed, the economy disrupted, and Kenya’s image in the world affected.

It would have been a moment to profile the hosting of the visiting Iranian President. Instead, the focus was on the protests and the violence. The damage being done to the country is massive.

Kenya prides itself in its liberal democracy, a progressive constitution that guarantees many rights, particularly those related to expression, assembly, and speech. We, however, have real difficulty in operationalising these rights.

We need to define more expressly how these rights are to be exercised and the role of the agencies that mark their limits. Do these agencies also have limits to which they can go in defining the boundaries? What are those limits?

As a nation, Kenya also needs to pay attention to national ethics. Many lives were affected in one way or the other. But our competitive politics, which should be our pride, seems more concerned with scoring points and winning a propaganda war.

There has been no shortage of social media actors making one claim or another, some outlandish. Still, some players have no moderation to assess what can be said safely and with what impact.

The efforts to score points and let the truth be damned overrides the need for a moderate tone that would lead to building bridges. This is not confined to social media alone. The guests invited to television screens to shed light on the going ons in the country often are no different from the bloggers.

The Kenyan public consuming the content is sufficiently sophisticated to understand the reality of the events unfolding. Thus, those given the platform to contribute to the debate would do well to help the nation move forward.

And move forward; the nation must. We live in a competitive world where the vacuum will not last long once Kenya cedes its ground. Our neighbours and competitors must be watching with glee. The rain has been beating the country for a while.

It is not just the political intolerance that is gnawing at the edges.
The economy has been beating; the country has never dealt with the age-old problem of corruption; our athletes’ shining stars on the global scene have been dimming somewhat with all manner of claims of dishonesty.

Ditto our local football. The once mighty Ingwe is on the decline, as is football generally. What we say about sports can be said of other sectors of the country’s health. It is time for leadership to revive the heart of the nation.

We must be honest with ourselves as a nation, appreciate our little achievements, and seek how to build on them.

If we have roads, it does not matter who built them; what we need is more roads. If we appreciate the little successes we have had, then we can build on them. To move forward, it is critical to unite the country.

It is for such moments of national crisis that leaders emerge. The leaders who make a difference in such moments as these are selfless ones with their eyes on the prize.

In this case, the prize must be the Kenyan nation – to move forward to maintain the lead role that it has played before.
This must be in all sectors: economy, sports, tourism, and innovation, among others.

Those tasked with spearheading these sectors’ growth cannot afford to let the country down. It is not time for useless virtues but for a selfless spirit that revives the nation’s potential.

At independence, our leaders united across tribes and regions. They were rewarded with independence. It may be time for today’s leaders to start where the independence leaders were: unite across ideology, ethnicity and ambition.

Reference is often made to how greater Kenya is than independent players. That needs to be demonstrated at a time such as this.