I once read somewhere that if two people in business always agree on everything then one of them is unnecessary. The truth is we need opposition in what ever ideas we have in life to push ourselves into achieving whatever goals we have in life. A good decision maker should be in a position to make a choice between two opposing arguments.
In Kenya today, it is unofficially official that we do not have opposition to check the balances in what the executive does. I in my humble opinion, I see a legislature that has been highjacked and being controlled by executive. Every aspect of freedom of speech and expression has been met with brutal axe from the ruling party. I do not understand why the president would crack the whip on Members of parliament who challenge him on particular ideas.
As much as we expect political party members to have loyalty and support party positions and agendas parties want to achieve, axing MPs from committees on the reason that they belong to a faction group of the party that views things different is excessively punitive and defeats the whole purpose of divergent views that should help is as a country to make better choices.
Handshake begat BBI and BBI begat animosity in Jubilee the ruling party in Kenya. Both handshake and BBI were good. They are good in face value but the section of leaders who feel they weren’t involved see this as a ploy by the then opposition party nasa to disrupt the peace in Jubilee.
Since then, we have the economy take a heavy blow from the pandemic and the response from the government has been worrying. The president locked down the country while cases were really low- good decision. But again decided to open up when number of daily confirmed cases were rising exponentially. Had the opposition been in its place, we would be seeing ideas from every corner and it would be easier to make a decision on was the best way for the country. That’s just an example.
Since everyone now agrees with everyone on everything, we are bound to trip. This goes beyond covid management. It eats our policy formulation and every aspect of governance. The point is, we need an opposition to check the government. We need formidable alliance of people with divergent views to ask questions on arbitrary and careless decisions that we have experienced in the past. We need an opposition that will ask the government to take responsibility on police brutality and extra judicial killings we see on this country.
We need people to take responsibility for the growing number of teenage mothers during the pandemic period when schools are shut. We cannot achieve this if everything be in leadership says yes to everything and everyone. I repeat if president Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga agree on everything, the one of them is unnecessary.
