IT IS THE HIGH TIME OUR LEADERS EVOLVED AND 'GREW UP'

By Jaymo Wa Thika

Confrontation has never been and will never be a quality to measure leadership. It is simply as a tactic to intimidate others into agreeing into your line of thinking.

Confrontation is usually a desperate move by an individual who can not gain results any other way. Those using such tactics are usually people unable to persuade, cajole, encourage, sweet-talk or influence. Results are achieved by threatening, coercing, raising voices, or stomping feet.

That is exactly what majority of our leaders. I believe that no one the monopoly of ideas. Thus, it literally calls for mature and constructive debates on issues of local and national importance. That is how civilized societies find solutions to challenges before them.

Name-calling and other unhonourable acts in public by some of our leaders only helps to complicate matters to the disadvantage of the same people they claim to represent.

Criticising and opposing everything your opponent (or even the government) does, without offering any tangible alternative solution, is not leadership. That is stupidity and mediocrity of the highest order.

Standing on podiums and using vulgar and obscenities to oppose those in office shows a leader who has not yet matured and evolved from secondary school mentality. Yes, your gullible supporters will cheer you on but they only help you expose your stupidity even more for the world to see.

The people who cheer you on as you emit oral garbage are even worse and are in fact comfortable with their miseries in life and their only source of entertainment is the verbal diarrhea you spit on those political podiums.

It's unfortunately that most of politicians are so learned in 'books' but are proof that formal education is not a measure of wisdom or intelligence. When they use confrontational politics and foul language to force their will on the electorates, one only weeps for our future generation who look up to them as role models.

When they contract goons and hooligans to shout down other leaders in public, eject others in very uncivilized manner and disrupt functions without blinking an eye, one can never be blamed to say that they don't deserve any position of leadership.

These acts only teach citizens to disrespect order and authority and the same leaders will fall victim the very same behaviour once they assume office. No one can achieve their set goals in such an environment.

It is not rocket science, however, to know that such leaders survive on the politics of havoc. No wonder most of them have nothing to show Kenyans for all the years they have been in authority.

Mature leaders offer alternative solutions to what their opponents are offering, not to fight everything for the sake of votes. They package themselves as the better option and win hearts through offering practical alternatives that are custom-made for their local areas.

Anyone fighting for a political seat as though it is a matter of life and death is someone we need to fear most. What is that which so dear to them that they believe life will end if they don't win an election? Hapo ndipo kuna kizungumkuti..... That's a sign of a bad and dangerous leader who should not be voted into office. It is an indication of a leader fighting to win an election for their own selfish gains.

It is the high time leaders proved to us why we should offer them an opportunity to lead us in rolling the wheel of development.