Wednesday, November 21, 2012

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS DOES NOT APPLY IN KENYA

On the road to self-actualization, the first step is fulfillment of biological and physiological needs which include food, clothing, shelter, drink, sex etc. The next most important step is fulfillment of safety needs which include safety, protection, law, order, stability etc. The other two needs that one needs to achieve before attaining self-actualization are Belonging and Esteem needs. To me Vision2030 is a self-actualization need and I find it wrong for us to spend hard-to-come-by resources on higher level needs when we cannot offer security, safety and ensure rule of law in our nation. Provision of basic healthcare for all has been a pipedream in Kenya yet we have a vision of crossing the poverty line for all by 2030. The education standards have long gone to the dogs yet we expect to produce professional to lead and grow this nation to great heights. I have often been told that one cannot scale a tree from the top but I think in Kenya anything and everything is possible. Not that I am against Vision2030, but it beats all logic to spend time and money of functions to commission a project aimed at achievement of a 2030 objective when a every day objective of providing internal security is not addressed.
Kenya is no longer the peaceful Island that it was. When communities are not butchering one another in Tana Delta; grenades are exploding in matatus and churches in Garissa and Eastleigh. In the meantime the Executive are busy opening 400 million residences for their fellow political class and receiving honorary degrees on Everything and Nothing. It surprises me that we can afford a 400 million residence for one family yet we are unable to procure a piece of land and build habitable homes for thousands IDP's. A police officer dies in the line of duty and he/she is quickly buried and forgotten yet when a politician dies while attending to personal matters and we form a commission of inquiry whose proceedings are brought to our television sets every evening just as a reminder of his/her "importance".


Any government that cannot set its development strategies based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs does not deserve to be in power. We need leaders who acknowledge and understand that you can only pursue a higher level need upon attainment of the preceding need. If we want to achieve growth and development in this country then we need to answer these very simple questions. Who will invest in Konza and Tatu City if the security of their investment is under threat by Al Shabaab, Mungiki, MRC et-al? Who will ride in the newly commissioned Syokimau commuter station/trains if grenades are hurled at the commuters? Who will drive on the Thika superhighway if carjacking is the order of the day? Who will serve in the police/military service if bandits, cattle rustlers, carjackers and robbers have superior weaponry? I again wish to emphasize that you can only achieve self-actualization by gradually satisfying lower level needs. Anyone who desires to ascend into any leadership position and does not know that you cannot achieve growth in a country where security is not guaranteed then he/she is not worthy of any mention on the ballot paper. Any aspiring leader who does not have a strategy on how he/she will achieve universal healthcare for this country's labour-force is not worthy of the ink on the ballot papers. Let us not waste resources pursuing pipedreams when we cannot take care of our citizens basic and security needs. Let us also not waste resources putting on the ballot papers names of people who have no strategy on how to transform Kenya into a cohesive, peaceful, health and wealthy nation.


God Bless Kenya and Peace be with us all.


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