I have watched keenly the events and happenings since the beginning of the education crisis in early September, especially the political intrigues the teachers' strike has stirred, and I have come to the regrettable conclusion that our opposition is indeed rubbish. Perhaps it's less than rubbish but I will be modest in my assessment of them. I have for a long time tried painstakingly not to label them garbage but I can no longer stand it. There's a a level of guts a liver needed for any person to continue lying to their own conscience and honestly I must admit I lack that.
A quick recap of the opposition's activities in the country since President Uhuru Kenyatta was elected into office in 2013 will show a group that seems extremely hungry for power but lacks the requisite strategy to execute their desire. The opposition currently seems to quickly jump onto any matters that look like anything that can give them political points. This is a behaviour of an opposition that doesn't understand their mandate. From the initial call fo national dialogue, which by all indication was intended at sneaking into government through the backdoor; then the now abandoned Okoa Kenya campaign also aimed at arm-twisting the law to make it easier for someone to get to presidency by disenfranchising the electorate; the failed SabaSaba rally aimed at sweltering the political temperatures and making Kenya ungovernable for the president; and so much more, this opposition has posted a hundred percent failure in the execution of their mandate. This is because they have no strategy. A good scholar once said, WITHOUT STRATEGY, EXECUTION IS AIMLESS; WITHOUT EXECUTION, STRATEGY IS USELESS. The opposition, muchas they know what they want, they don't seem to know how to get it.
Nothing provides a better example of aimlessness than how they handled the teachers strike. The government terribly mishandled the teachers' call for improved terms and instead of the opposition looking like an alternative government that they should be, they showed that they have absolutely no idea of how to get tutors back to class. The Kenyan teacher is not the least paid person in the country. How anyone could come up with the idea of asking poorer-than-teachers Kenyans to donate for teachers is beyond me. Worse still, the leadership of the opposition seemed to agree with the idea. Those are men and women who aspire to sit in the house on the hill some day.
Shortly after, we're hearing of an intended impeachment motion against the president. The reason for this is that the president disobeyed a court order to effect the increment awarded to teachers in accordance with an earlier agreement.
Now, this is where I find this opposition most wanting. First, the president is not the employer of teachers nor does he pay them. How a court order originating from a dispute between workers and their employer would end up on his table is a complete mystery. Uhuru can not be charged with contempt of court where he's deemed to have disobeyed a court order that was never addressed to him. It's the TSC that the order was meant for and it's the TSC that failed to pay.
On may argue that the president is the one who gives money to TSC to effect the pay. But that's a lie because treasury does, not the president. Remember, if TSC had been willing to pay, and treasury refused to provide the funds, TSC would have the right to go to court and obtain a court order to that effect. The president would appear nowhere in the equation.
Whatever comments he has made regarding the crisis, can only be described, in the judicial corridors, as an opinion by a citizen, to which he, like everyone else, is entitled. That's why I think this opposition either lacks the nous to act as an opposition or is a composition of morons who can't differentiate their left from their right.
Have a good day, won't you?
