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Good people, 4
th
February 2009I went to One Kenya, One Dream, The Kenya We Want conference at KICC today. I decided to write the notes below from the first day to give friends and colleagues an idea of what went on.
Pluses
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I figured it was a good thing that there was a show of government support -- practically all the Cabinet was there. Although, in the final analysis, this could just be my determination to be optimistic!
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President Moi drew a laugh out of me for saying: "How come we can still have people with jiggers?"
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 We were told to speak openly and "not make this a forum for lamentation" -- instead,people should focus on suggestions for the way forward.
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It was reported that at the AU meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian president had saidthat no other country in Africa discusses its problems as plainly as Kenyans do.
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Prime Minister Raila said that we need to stop harping about colonialism, 45 years afterthe fact
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President Kibaki said that we can't wish away our ethnicity in the face of the facts that:people from different ethnic groups live in every corner of the country, intermarriage andmingling in professional associations and political parties. Also said that Kenyans weredoing us proud all over the world.
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Prof. Winnie Mitulla (Institute of Development Studies, UoN) made twointeresting statements in my view:(1) "The challenge is community organising" and(2) "We need visionary leadership beyond politicians"
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Former Norwegian PM who has led two coalition governments: Politics is the creation of a society that benefits the individual human being.
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Speaker from the floor: it's good that both Kibaki and Moi were at the KICC because they each owned a great deal of land and could donate some of it to IDPs.
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Kenya Human Rights Commission Executive Director Muthoni Wanyeki's three pointsfrom the floor:(1) Ensure that we allow freedom of expression or else people will vent in other ways;
(2) Ethnic tensions are not just bad feelings towards each other -- there arereal issues that must be addressed
;(3) institute anti-discrimination laws.
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 Ambassador Salim Ahmed Salim (former OAU head): multiparty is good; multi-army is bad
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Clean toilets and TP
Minuses
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I was surprised to see that there were literally people from all over Kenya.This, of course, makes sense given the title of the conference. But, havingseen the draft programme earlier, it sounded rather intellectual. And thisindeed turned out to be a problem: fairly intellectual language for a meeting where between 10 and 12 representatives from each of Kenya's 148 districts were present.It didn't help that the presenters were reading their papers! Thankfully I was able to speak to one of the organisers about this.
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 When trying to close a brief question time for the first plenary session in the afternoonthere was outrage from one section of the floor. One person said:
"We're not here tolisten to you; you're here to listen to us!"
I felt this was a valid point andcommunicated it to the organiser. People need to feel heard.
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President Moi recounted an apparently old metaphor he used to tell: leading a corruptKenya is like being a bus driver who cannot leave driving in order to search out and catchthe pickpockets in the bus. Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka later said that it's better forthe bus driver to park by the side of the road and do just that!
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In the same breath as above, the Ethiopian president said that we Kenyans don't doanything about our problems -- we only talk.
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Disorganisation in registration, lack of conference packs and re-designating the ladies'toilets for our use without notice!
Interesting things
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 Apparently this is the third "Kenya We Want" conference in our history. The first two were in 1962 (just before independence) and in 1980 (after Kenyatta died).
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Several of the morning session speakers (President, PM, VP, Ambassadors, etc) said that we cannot avoid this task of ensuring a united, cohesive nation.
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In protocol terms, people consistently mentioned the PM before the VP.
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It's only 21 years until 2030.
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President Moi drew intermittent applause throughout his speech. How quickly we forget! We need to keep highlighting moral authority issues. Similarly, Vice President KalonzoMusyoka called for dams to be built in Eastern province and drew a burst of clapping.Surely!
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 At independence the aim was to eradicate the four human ills: "
ugonjwa, ujinga,umaskini na utawala mbaya
". I had never heard it said in Swahili before.
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I was struck by the difference in the issues Raila and Kibaki found important:
○
Raila said that Kenyans themselves need to shatter the "ethnic glass ceiling".
○
Kibaki emphasised that we shouldn't throw out institutions -- they could betransformed and thereby remain useful (witness how Obama was elected using thesame institutions that had prevented African Americans from voting).
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One speaker from the floor said that Government shouldn't have bought a building forKShs 700m for the PM when Kenyans have serious issues. The PM was in the session atthe time.
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Moi University Chancellor Prof Bethwell Ogot:(1) all Kenyan cultures are mongrels;(2) majority rule cannot guarantee stability.
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Speaker from the floor: let the country's 3 top leaders go around the country preachingpeace. [Followed by applause]
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Speaker from the floor: PM, please tame the MPs so they stop being "chameleons"! [Thislady was really angry.]
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Speaker (Joseph Munyao, Democratic Party leader) from the floor: civil servants andpoliticians should not be in business.There was the usual talk of dealing with corruption. Vice President Musyoka said to thepresident that some heads in high office need to roll.Overall, the disconnect between speakers and participants was sufficiently serious that it may have made the whole meeting ultimately meaningless. Yet this conference could be anopportunity to begin consensus-development around key national cohesion issues.
Those of you who pray, please pray for a change of format.
 If the speakers just took us through their major talking points (in normal, everyday language) it would help reduce the disconnect as well as give more time for valuable discussion.The breakout sessions begin tomorrow.Kind regards,Njeri Gakonyo
Final conference report
So after two-and-a-quarter days (I was too exhausted to attend much of Friday) of attending theKenya We Want (KWW) conference here's what I think about it all:The conference is part of implementing Agenda 4 from the Annan-driven peace process of last year. In one way it is good that the outcomes are feeding into Agenda 4. But, as with everythingelse in Kenya, implementation is the challenge. Although speakers and participants often continued to speak past each other, the participants were determined to get full value from the conference. So they spoke up regardless.Here are the issues I picked up as important:
Governance
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In the same way that location, location, location is the top priority in real estate, in Kenya itis governance, governance, governance. There was a great deal of anger towards topgovernment leaders and people were not shy to express it. We will not get anywhere near Vision 2030 with corruption.
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