Leaders of Tomorrow

In October 1980 when I was born my dad was barely 28 years old. He had gone to school with the promise of tomorrow’s leadership. He was a Primary School teacher having trained at Shanzu Teachers Training College, thanks to his elder brother, Fred, who while a student at Mombasa Polytechnic had applied on his behalf to join the Institution. So my old man, now 57 retired as a School teacher three Years ago. He confides in me that his brother and other surrounding forces had prevailed upon him to abandon his A-level studies and join the Teachers Training College since there was urgent need for leaders of tomorrow. He obliged and faithfully pursued this new calling and was admitted to the Teacher’s Service Commission’s Payroll in 1978, two years after which I was born – a bouncing baby boy also with the promise of tomorrow’s leadership.

My Primary and Secondary education was faithfully pursued during the Nyayo era with even greater promise of tomorrow’s leadership. Meanwhile, my poor old man stagnated in his teaching profession waiting faithfully for his tomorrow to come so that he too could lead. So he taught and taught then abandoned  his employer TSC and moved to Muhoroni Sugar Company where he continued to teach in the Company School. Somewhere down the line – I don’t know how it happened, but it did anyway – the man was working in the security department of the company. It was a probation period so I am told. Somebody help me understand, how a teacher becomes the head of watchmen… it didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t to date. Anyway, the poor man did not finish a month as a head watchman (whatever it was, i am not even sure what his work was then – besides I was too busy trying to become a leader of tomorrow that I had not time, let alone ability to investigate the mystery) before he was transferred to what was then called training and development office.

He worked in that department for two or three years (memory fails me) before he suddenly announced to me his sudden resignation. I bet the old man figured out that he had no business masquerading as a middle-level company manager without any meaningful training for it. Methinks he must have been idling in that office and he saw no sense in earning a pay wrought from pure boredom and petty gossip. Though he tells me that he resigned because his conscience would not allow him to sign a document that acknowledged receipt of construction materials for a departmental building. Turns out the materials never made it to the company but to a bar one fat cat was building in his hometown.

Anyway he made amends with his former employer (TSC) and was reinstated as a teacher, a capacity he served in till his retirement not so long ago.

While all these were happening, I was also climbing the academic ladder with due diligence (well I joked a little bit and was expelled from three High Schools and ended up being a semi-private candidate). I begun my undergraduate during the Moi era but completed during the Rainbow era. You see, the Nyayo era was disillusioning that I just went to college because of many other becauses. But when the Rainbow revolution came, I thought, wow! here comes the culmination of my dream – there will be employment after all. Finally I am going to be a leader of tomorrow. Of course you all know what happened: the more things changed the more they remained the same. Octogenarians were hired and maintained as technocrats at various government departments and State Corporations. So while my dad was retiring at 55, being declared unable to instruct 10 – 15 year 0lds, the Muthauras in the 70’s or 80’s, whatever, were solidifying their positions in government. My hopes for tomorrow’s leadership once more ebbed away from me.

What I Did Not Get Right

So I have been asking myself whether my tomorrow will ever come. Many people having been working towards becoming the leaders of tomorrow and they have greyed without realising this dream. So is the question about the actual coming of tomorrow or the understanding of leadership. Maybe what I need to understand is what I am supposed to do when I finally become the leader of this so elusive tomorrow. And how do I become this leader?

Well, like the poor Jehovah Witnesses who had twice predicted Christ return without success and on realising their delusion decided to explain away their fairy so will I. The witnesses now say that in fact, Christ indeed returned as predicted. So they say they were right about the time of Jesus’ second return but were wrong on the how of his return. That Jesus indeed came, though no one saw him.

That is how I will explain my leadership and by extension my pap’s leadership of tomorrow – or is it yesterday? You see, I will not be elected into any contestable office, neither will I work for any state department or corporation – I have determined not to even if the position was brought before me with an additional offer of a tractor, a fleet of landrovers and a private jet. Nonetheless, I realise that I have immense capacity and opportunity to influence life – both of individuals and society at large. That sphere of influence is what I call leadership. I can count individuals whose lives have changed for the better because they met me – or rather, i met them. Well, there may be some whose lives changed for the worse because we met – either in my days as an obnoxious teenager or in my latter days as Young adult.  An acquaintance of mine once retorted: “I won’t let you be the agent of discouragement in my life.” There and then I stopped teasing this little girl who was my schoolmate. I learned therefore that whatever it is that I rub into individuals, will trickle down to society – and that, my friends, is my leadership contribution.

So my old man need not wait to be State House tenant to fulfill the mantra of “tomorrow’s leadership” because for one he will never but also most importantly there is no leadership in that house. The people we call honourables are in fact dishonourable rulers and not leaders. Leaders show not only how to do stuff but also why stuff is done. Rulers on the other hand, demand that we get things done – things that most of the time they don’t even comprehend an inch. Figure out assistant minister Kalembe Ndile giving an ultimatum to his “juniors” that he wants a whole KWS director to report to him early in the morning whenever a goat is eaten by a lion. We have that breed all over and we call them our leaders – leader my foot!

I still insist that leadership begins in the tiniest social unit – family. When my Father spanked me back in the 90’s because I had not defended my brother when he was being beaten by some juveniles in the estate I took him as a cruel man. Five or six years ago he addressed my brother and I as his closest allies and admonished us not to part ways and to be mindful of each others’ welfare. He also said he would forgive anybody for anything but will never listen to anybody who hurts his wife who is my mother. What my father was doing is called training. It was not mere instruction, it was giving direction. Simply put, my dad taught me that a man’s responsibility is to defend his wife at all times. He is also responsible for educating his children – both formally and informally.

Apart from training his own children my father was entrusted with the responsibility of instructing other people’s children. This year alone, I have talked to his former pupils, now professionals in India, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, here in the US and back home in Kenya – all expressing gratitude for his role in their lives. Of course there are some bitter ones whom he spanked. Well, he spanked me more and I am not groaning or mourning about it. One pupil, Nimisha called and told me how grateful she was to my dad who had taught her English. She narrated that while in Grade 5 my dad asked her to read a comprehension passage before the grade 7. She adds that the experience boosted her drive and desire to learn English more. When she went back to India, she had her first job as an interpreter and has since then advanced into other fields. I called my dad to tell him the sweet stories I have been hearing and I could tell from his voice that he was crying. He was too excited that he couldn’t say anything but cry – thanking god that at least his feeble efforts count after all.

So even though he paid my school fees, the greatest benefit I got was from the periodic spankings when my conduct and character were unbecoming. The reminders of family value and unity, love and respect will never leave my mind. Therefore I can say that he satisfactorily led his family into adopting the value system he espoused. That is leadership. He may have failed in many other things (like he may have realised too late that I only bow to reason – that the more I am  physically the more troublesome I become) but that is debited to his finitude as a fallen creature – man.

So today I don’t like hypocrisy and lies. I abhor laziness and injustice. I loathe slanderers and hate immorality. These things my dad led me to believe that they were wrong. He was a leader to me yesterday and remains one today. So yes he was a leader all this time after all. My mom also played her motherly role and is equally a great leader in her own right. She still helps young women to grow up into women that are respectable. Long live Nyombei.

In a similar pattern, I will say that indeed tomorrow’s leadership surely comes – but it starts yesterday. I needed to have defended my brother against those thuggish kids of Shikuku. I know better because now my brother defends me when I am in need. I will be counted as a leader tomorrow based on what I started doing yesterday.

And with that I have abandoned my plans to join the monastery. Like Luther, will storm the convent, get myself a mamasita and make babies whom i’ll proceed to lead. I want to have my family and make them an example of good leadership and governance. My children will not have to learn from Society’s poor leadership – I teach them to follow me as I follow Christ.

I resolve to love my wife more. To love my children more. To Love my God more. To love my neighbour more. That to me is leadership.