Just Another Presidential Post

I believe the most interesting piece of news I had the pleasure to come across last week would be the story on Zimbabwe’s bank account. After paying their civil servants Zimbabwe looked in the bank and found that they only have 217 US dollars sitting there. That’s slightly less than 20,000 bob. If you were buying diamonds, which the country has lots of, that would probably get you a gemstone of low quality that you’d be embarrassed to propose with.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Even before Mugabe took power as the prime minister of Zimbabwe in 1980- later the head of state in 1987 – he had been touted as the guy to look out for. The governments in the west called him a visionary, the governments in the east didn’t know of his existence and the people in his country, and continent loved him. Exactly the position in which any African leader would have wanted to be at the time. Now, he, obviously, knew nothing about reviving an economy but by virtue of diamonds pouring out of his mines and cotton in the farms he managed to keep his economy steady at about 2.7% year on year growth until 1989. Foreign demand went down, supply stayed up and Mugabe was stumped.

Many times I have said that whatKenyaneeds is a dictator, but where does the line exist. Kagame is being praised by many as the leader that Africa needs because of the change he has brought toRwanda. And he has done good work. I’ll give him that but I can’t help but be wary of the fact that he may just not quit.

And that’s the problem with our leaders. They don’t know when their time  is up. Take Moi for example, he ruled for 24 years. Mugabe has ruled for as long as I’ve been alive and, until the new constitution I knew Amos Wacko was a post in the government.

Google recently announced their results. Turns out they made 50 billion US dollars. That’s infinitely more than whatZimbabwehas in the bank. Furthermore, it can runKenyafor a little more than 3 years. That’s a ton of money. Before you get up in arms and refer me to couple of weeks ago when I already made the point that we need a CEO, not a president. And, I’m still convinced about it; but maybe whatKenyaneeds is a white leader. Let’s go find us a White person from somewhere to lead the country. They’re the ones who are willing to step down if their dog gets sick. Then again, how wouldKenyalook like if it had a president who can’t dance? Now that, would be a tragedy.