Leaders' aversion to change is the fuel of growing youth discontent

Luhya leaders have an uncanny ability to say, or do the darnedest things. Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya showed up in Vihiga County in the last week of September where Maragoli and Tiriki elders crowned him the Luhya spokesman and guardian of the spirit called ‘Luhya unity’. 

Natembeya has been on the cases of Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula for a while now, often berating them for their inability to stand up for the Luhya nation.

Obviously unhappy that Natembeya had upstaged him in his own backyard, Mudavadi turned up a week later to do damage control. While addressing Maragoli Festival Cultural Committee members on October 3, he told them that he was invaluable to the Luhya community, and cautioned them on the dangers of upsetting the apple cart.

Mudavadi is said to have warned the Luhya community it would suffer if it made him lose his seat in the National Security Council (NSC) where he is a member by virtue of being the Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary. 

Talk of hubris. At what point, one may ask, did Mudavadi become the Luhya, or the converse? Such conceitedness plays into Natembeya’s jibes and derisive memes on social media platforms depicting the duo as ‘Akishiba’ and ‘Hasumbui’, which basically means as long as the two are satisfied, everything else ceases to matter. 

Mudavadi’s position in NSC serves his ego; it's of no demonstrable use to the residents of Vihiga County who live in constant fear as gangs stage deadly raids in broad daylight and under the cover of darkness without fear of reprisals. The gangs even have fancy names like ‘Reggae Defenders’ and ‘Usiku Sacco’. 

And while Old Guard's are besotted with their supposed infallibility, they are completely oblivious that the youth are agitating for jobs, affordable healthcare and education. The tectonic plates on which societal norms are built are shifting, causing disruptions and an enormous chasm between the old guard and the demographic that is Generation Z. 

These leaders have refused to acknowledge that investment in education is paying dividends; that people no longer react to commands or situations with the mechanical loyalty of robots. Youth enlightenment is such that they interrogate and question everything around them. This curiosity is opening their eyes to new realities, and the realisation that the old guard subscribes to the lion feeding mentality. The females hunt, but the males feed to their fill before the females and cubs feed on the remains.

It is an unfair practice that leaders have religiously taken to, often seeing the youth as leaders of tomorrow, people to be kept on the periphery of leadership, to be fed on morsels from the high table. But the youth are hungry and daring to feed without waiting for their insensitive seniors to leave morsels for them. This myopia is fuelling youth restlessness locally and internationally. Youth assertiveness is on the rise, and is bound to radically change perspectives. 

Youth in Nepal, tired of waiting for what they knew would never come, took to the streets to forcefully take it. They applied Henry Thoreau's civil disobedience theory, which advocates prioritisation of one's conscience above the dictates of  the law, to cause a regime change. The ballot for them was not a viable alternative. Morocco and Madagascar’s youth, also wearied by false promises, poor living standards, corruption, joblessness and dysfunctional health systems, have taken to the streets. 

Kenya’s Gen Z set the global ball of youth revolt rolling. It would be injudicious to believe they have been subdued because they haven't. No doubt, they learnt some lessons from their impetuosity, and global developments could goad them into another attempt.

Our leaders must come down from their high perches and meet the youth midway. What the youth demand is simple; jobs, an end to rampant systemic corruption, and education and health systems that work for all. Self-aggrandisement by the old leaders only serves to infuriate the youth who want change urgently, and they have demonstrated they are ready to force it if there is need.