It is now a well-known fact that Kenya’s Members of Parliament are one of the world highest paid legislators. Actually in Africa alone they are only second to Nigeria’s legislators. Whether they are worth their pay is a question that is mostly asked but rarely answered but that is not the subject of the day. In a world that is driven by a desire to acquire as much material wealth as possible aka being rich we find that a lot of our youth and younger generations want to be Members of Parliament in the future.
It is sad when you have our legislators as role models for our children. We have come to “demonize” noble professions such as doctors, nurses and teachers. And as children see members of these profession hit the streets to protest being under paid they are getting the image that it is not worth joining such professions in Kenya. I wonder how ti would be in our Members of Parliament took to the streets to protest when they wanted to raise their salaries. Bring back the role of strikes as a tool for social enhancement and maybe they too would have their month’s salaries withheld for failure to do their month’s work. If this criteria was used across board I believe our MPs would not earn as much as they expect.
Anyway, the subject of this post was to analyze in a lay man’s view what it takes to be an MP in Kenya.
One of our Mps said that if the Members of Parliament were thieves then Kenyans too are thieves. It is rahter ironic that I agree with him. Well to some extent. Kenyans have these little evils that we do harbor in our character and to some extent the Mps are being victimized as they extrapolate these on a national stage. So, step one in being a Kenyan Mps is being as selfish as you can be. How can you sleep “hungry” and you represent close to a million Kenyans. Take care of yourself first then you will have the strentght to take care of your constituents.
Second step, act like an MP. A wise man once said that when you go to Rome do like the Romans do. Another one added that if you want to “hang” out with pigs, pun intended, you have to know how to roll in the dirt(mud). Birds of a feather flock together so don’t try to put yourself out there as being different. This shall raise eyebrows and cost you some votes.
You must also carry your tribe, not your heart, on your sleeve. This is your tool to power. Place yourself as the “voice” of your people. You must present value to the national political arena. This can also be achieved by being a very important piece in a political party. Sometimes just the party you are nominated with can earn you a seat in parliament.
There are many more tips that can be gotten if you carefully access the political arena. Be at the right place at the right time.
All in all, I am part of the few that believe that politics in Kenya can change for the better. In some distant future all that I have written above shall be insignificant and we shall choose leaders based on who fully represents our interests and is as much our servant as he or she is our leader.
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Euticus is lover of poetry, music and photography. He masquerades as a computer scientist and part accountant but mostly enjoys writing and project management.
He loves video games, especially FiFa and Call of Duty and is looking to travel to Brazil for the world cup in 2014.
He writes for several blogs and is the cofounder of africanplato.com and beershara.co.ke. He can be found on twitter@azizmola
This is true. This is all it takes to be a .legislator in Kenya. All is not lost, you say. I concur.