[UAH] VOTERS HAVE NO MORAL AUTHORITY TO CRITICIZE

Koigi Wa Wamere: Voters Have No Moral Authority To Criticize Greedy
Leaders They Created.


By: Hon. Koigi Wa Wamere via Facebook

Since Parliament opened, voters and media have complained against salaries
of MPs, governors and ward reps being doubled or tripled in defiance of
Salaries and Remuneration Commission's recommendations.

For demanding higher salaries when ordinary people have hardly one meal a
day, leaders are rightly being accused of greed and insensitivity.

On reduction of salaries, we want to be on the same side with the poor,
the weak and the downtrodden but many times people of lower classes are
their own worst enemies.

But to get to Parliament and raise their salaries, leaders did not shoot
their way there in coup d'etat. They were elected by voters in `free, fair
and transparent elections.' If voters elected these greedy leaders
knowingly, they have only themselves to blame.

Worse, if voters elected these greedy leaders after taking their bribes,
they have no moral right to condemn them for raising their salaries.

In case it is not clear, voters create greedy leaders by freely voting for
them. As for the greedy nature of leaders, creatures cannot be more to
blame than their creators.

Tragically, like apes, people laugh at the red backside of others but
never their own. They condemn corruption of leaders but cheer their own
for what they wouldn't have without it.

Hypocritically, voters who complain against the greed of leaders forget
they demanded money before they could vote. For their anger against the
greed of leaders, Jesus would tell them to remove the log in their eyes
before pointing at the speck in the eyes of others.

If voters elected ogres who lead and eat them, why do they forget they
went to bed with them voluntarily and blame themselves for being eaten?

When voters elect thieves to lead them, can they be morally right to
accuse "their thieves" for greed? If hyenas eat sheep they are given to
take to the pastures, can they be accused of greed?

When voters were asked by the retired President Kibaki to eat the money of
candidates during campaigns and cheered the emasculation of the Leadership
and Integrity Act for letting them eat, how can they now complain when it
is the thieves' turn to eat?

Without a social contract with leaders not to eat while in Parliament and
government, voters cannot scream at MPs when they begin to eat. It seemed
silently agreed that people would eat during campaigns and leaders would
eat later in parliament and government.

One may sympathize if voters elect as president, MP or governor a bad
person they don't know, but not when they elect a thief they know into
parliament or government. There are no sympathies for self-inflicted
tragedies.

Many times Kenyan voters have rejected Jesus as their President or MP and
instead elected Barrabas to lead them. Why should they weep when Barrabas
starts to rob and murder them?

Voters deserve the bad and greedy leaders they elect. When people sell
votes and leaders buy leadership, aren't leaders henceforth free to use
leadership as a personal enterprise with which to make money from
salaries, allowances, service charges and bribes that accrue to corrupt
leadership?

Michael Carson was right that choices have consequences. When voters elect
hyenas they must expect their goats will be eaten.

But why do people elect hyenas when they know the consequences?

Voters have failed to elect good leaders so many times that they have
gotten used to it or given up voting differently.

After concluding that leaders are thieves and good leaders are hard to
find, bad leaders take over and transform society into a jungle. As
herbivores, voters have resigned themselves to a sad belief that whatever
they do leadership, power, government, parliament and courts, all belong
to carnivores and electing a sheep is impossible, futile and purposeless.
Subsequently, power is for carnivores, from lion to leopard to hyena to
jackal to fox.

Why then is anybody surprised when MPs vow to raise their salaries?

There could be surprise only if voters elected hyenas without knowledge, a
crime that can lead to people electing hyenas which they do. As for the
alternative, it is worse. When voters elect someone because he or she has
failed so many times to get elected and should be given a chance to
recover their money, why would such a leader not become an outright thief
to recover his money?

People who have spent so much or tried so often to get elected can only
recoup their expenses through increased salaries, allowances, per diems,
charges to ask or not to ask questions and corrupt deals with
Anglo-leasings and Goldenbergs.

After so many failures, voters must now know they are the ultimate losers
when they elect corrupt leaders and reject good ones. While leaders are
beneficiaries of corruption, people are its victims when fleeced
government cannot deliver development to them.

Once a deal is cut between a corrupt voter and an equally corrupt leader,
in the next five years, corrupt leaders disappear to make their money.
Equally, rejected good leaders like Moses, Bildad Kaggia and Joseph
Murumbi disappear from public service abandoning people to their own
devices.

While voters are bribed for almost nothing during campaigns, in the
subsequent five years of no leadership, they lose trillions of money that
thieving leaders steal from them or development they don't deliver. All
developed countries began with enlightened voters electing progressive,
non-thieving leaders. On the other hand, poor countries are so because
corrupt voters elect corrupt leaders who become big thieves while in
power.

Voters are right to hate the greed of leaders. They must however hate
their own greed more because being weak, they lose more from greed. To
move this country forward, greed of all – and not just MPs – must be
eradicated. Only then shall we save Kenya. But salvation must begin with
the education of voters – if they will listen

Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"

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