Raila, Uhuru, Karua, Kalonzo; who should succeed Kibaki? Should their professions matter? May be the price of a bottle Tusker Provides the answer.

Back in January of 2003 in the height of the euphoria and pandemonium that hand brought Baba Jimmy to power, I remember passing through a bus terminus, my shoulders heavily laden with a big school bag. Excited touts sat in groups chatting and exchanging their views on what they thought Kenya would be under the chief economist. “ Ndutige wone muchuba ukugwa nginya ciringi bote” ( “wait and see a bottle of beer will now retail for forty shillings”, one of them was telling the rest. Back then as I was still young and did not know that brewed barley could be sweet I did not as so much care what the price of a bottle of beer was a much as the price of bread at the school canteen. I since finished high-school and recently finished an undergraduate programme in a local public university, allegedly only one on the equator in the world.

However I am none the wiser now, I take a few browns for the road and the price of beer is not ‘bote’ (forty shillings), in-fact it is ninety shillings. So the question that begs is if Kibaki the economist did not tame the runaway price of beer, of what profession should his successor come from? So let’s start with the likely candidates.

Raila

So apart from being a career politician, what profession is Raila? So they also say that Raila is an engineer, that he had a brief cameo as a University of Nairobi don is also commonly known rhetoric amongst many Kenyans. He could actually be a leftist. Could he lead the country into even greater heights? His is a language that most elites don’t understand the masses; very high on a drug called euphoria understands his language quite well. He might be good for the majority but certainly not good for business. He is apparently good for me, for if and when he becomes president, I will make a name for myself in politics for espousing what might be wrong with his presidency

Uhuru

Until the day of the budget I never knew that Uhuru was a political economist, sort of a discipline that happens when the discipline of political science and mainstream economics have a child together. Could he be good for the country? Apparently this is very hard to tell. Uhuru is not a man who has come out so strongly to stand for anything let’s say being pro-business or pro-poor. Uhuru continues to send indifferent signals to supporters and detractors alike. I would say he is still on the crucible. We could tell if he can between now and August 2012.

Ruto

He is a scientist, this fact is well known, he also abhors Artists, and I mean guys like me who studied Arts based courses for 4 years in university. He looks the Michuki type, he can makes things happen (please refer to his stints as Minister for Agriculture and Minister for higher education, ignore the maize scandal though). Though he has some good leadership qualities, his persona is a wee bit abrasive something that could turn out into fully blown despotism.

Karua and (Kalonzo in very small caps)

These have been paired together much mostly because they are lawyers. I don’t know whether Kalonzo remembers how it feels to wear the lawyerly wig, (I am not ignorant I just don’t know its name), Ok May be I should ask Kangethe. You can also lump any other lawyer who is viewing for president in this category.

Until recently Obama, a lawyer was derogatorily referred to as the lawyer in chief. That was before he ordered and orchestrated Osama’s, America’s great arch-nemesis demise. Lawyers everywhere have all things in common; they talk in Kenya. In Africa though lawyers seem to suffer from a duck that particularly prevents them from ascending to presidency (delete Mandela).

So, who should be president?

Why not hire an expatriate? Someone like Michael Joseph, or an outsider in politics like James Mwangi the CEO. You tell me who should be president.