In Kenya, seeking Presidency is a Hunger Games experience. Being President is tougher than the Survivor series. I’m too young to understand the succession politics that handed Kenya from Jomo Kenyatta to Daniel Moi, but old enough to speculate that earlier Mwai Kibaki or Kenneth Matiba presidencies, 1992 or 1997, might have better focused our socio-economic, and possibly political, path.
While the late Mr Matiba sadly didn’t get the chance to lead, Mr Kibaki did his bit in beginning to transform Kenya. He delivered 6.99 per cent GDP growth in 2007, an election year. Then, after our 2007/8 post-election violence (PEV), the subsequent political rapprochement led to our highest growth rate (8.4 per cent in 2010) since Jomo’s final years (9.45 per cent in 1977, 6.91 per cent in 1978).
