By REUBE MUSONIK – OPINION
Long before William Samoei Ruto happened on the Kenyan political scene, I read some exciting books that influenced my thinking and led me into what I do today. Some of those books stick out in my tortured mind like sore thumbs – in a painful but memorable way. They are ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ by Walter Rodney; ‘African Religions and Philosophy’ by Prof. John S. Mbiti and Franza Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of The earth’.
I know those are strange books to some of my friends but to us, those of us inspired by the politics and economic theories of Karl Mark, Che Guevara and Julius Nyerere, these books formed the foundation of our political thinking and discourse.
I do not want to go into the details of those books – in any case I don’t have many – just the general idea; that Europe and generally the White Person, will not offer solutions to Africa’s problems because thy do not set to out to offer any solutions bu8 to explout and continue dominance and economic control of the territories they used to call colonies. It;s what later scholars called neo-colonialism – it’s what’s sold to us by IMF and World Bank and all those foreign embassies placed in African capitals – to protect the interests of their mother countries so that the order of subjugation and state enslavement continues to feed the parasite that once colonised us.
Today, African states are more of vassal states of European and American power. They have made us believe in our inferiority, our inability to step into the modern economy and start our own industries and become economically independent, the way we were before they disrupted our lives with their ways. These state shave made us believe that we have to borrow money from them, to wait for ‘grants” to develop and that for us to appear to be successful, we must aspire to live in their countries.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Africa can believe in itself.
That is why I am deeply disappointed that the one man who has galvanized the whole of Kenya, insired a whole generation, can so openly betray his people. William Ruto could have become an agent of generation, an inspiration for growth, a sort of Kenyan and African Industrial Revolution because so many believed in him. They hung onto his every word but today they’re on the verge of despising him because none of his lofty promises have come true.
He can still redeem himself because those protesting against him are not saying, “leave now!” but they saying if you don’t change, “we’re coming to get you!”
Instead of trying to ram IMF ideas down our throats, Ruo can lead Kenyan in a serious discussion on the IMF and World Bank imposed economic conditions. They’re not helping us but driving us deep into misery.
William Samoei Ruto is said to have been a student of Moi but there’s one lesson he apparently missed; when IMF wants you out, they give you conditions that will inspire your people to rise against you. In 1991-2, Moi was forced to accept very tough IMF terms that resulted in hundreds of young people losing their jobs, many of them just after they had started working. Those young men became destitute and some have never recovered. Ruto has been made to implement conditions that will secure job losses and rebellion. Nobody will listen to him as long as they’re hungry.
There’s no point blaming foreign powers for funding unrest – the foreign powers do not create the conditions favourable to unrest. If they come in, they only take advantage of and magnify conditions that foster unrest.
IMF and World Bank are your enemies. They are money lenders and we all know money lenders have no friends.
BTW, IMF and World Bank have shareholders. Those shareholders demand interest from their investments. The interest they earn is from loans to African countries. The reason for the existence of IMF and World Bank is to keep other economies dependent on the shareholders, to keep suppling raw materials and labour at prices determine by the shareholders. The sellers or those that believe they’re selling, have no say in the pricing of their products o labour. To ensure that situation is not disrupted, they make emergent economies dependent on them.
How Ruto fell for this ruse, with the likes of David Ndii around him baffles me. But then, Ndii could be an agent of the IMF and World Bank; a traitor and double agent.
Reject the IMF, let’s go back to default settings – Kenyans will bear any pain for as long as it’s for their growth, not to fatten Oscar Sudi and Rigathi Gacagu and buy them expensive watches
Prof. Njuguna Ndung'u: Treasury CS