The Bahatian

Giachong'e residents in a demo   In an earlier blog post, I posited that a water crisis that will one day spark a vicious battle for this resource was in the making. Earlier in 2017, we saw residents of places like Giachong’e village demonstrating demanding equitable distribution of this precious commodity when they marched to the office of the then Dundori ward member of county assembly. No solution was offered, other than the building of high capacity tanks which left sceptics wondering where excess water to fill them was to be sourced from.   When the taps are perennially dry, does it make sense to have ten concrete tanks littered all over the ward which are increasingly looking like ghost projects? At the time of their construction, were pipes bursting under pressure necessitating their need?   On the day of writing this, Friday, 29 th December, 2017, there was witnessed another demonstration by the residents of the said village, who threatened to cut water

  Courtesy photo It doesn’t take rocket science to realize that the greater Dundori ward in Nakuru County is on a backpedal progress. And this can be seen by the kind of leaders – previous and the current – that had or are representing us.   It is not an understatement to claim that a cabal of power brokers had been in the making for long going by the choice of leaders rammed down our throats. The previous and current ward representatives, claims had it, are products of a local administrator and a renowned tycoon and were forced to the majority who had no choice but to legitimize them through the ballot.   A story is told how one former councillor was compelled to step down from running on The National Alliance (TNA) party during the 2013 General Election and pave way for the former MCA by this administrator whose name cannot be revealed here. The septuagenarian former councillor opted to run on the less popular Democratic Party and lost massively to a young engineer

Josphat He believes he has what it takes to be a leader. Poor leadership, he says, is the bane of our underdevelopment no wonder the five wards in Bahati constituency seems to be lagging behind despite the enormous potential or resources they are endowed with.   His bone of contention, however, is that Bahati constituency doesn’t have a leader but a maverick politician who has nothing to offer. “What we need is a visionary leader who has the interest of the people in the heart, not a gerrymandering politician with little to show in terms of services delivery,” he says.   The problem with Bahati constituency, he notes, is the tendency of voters to vote for a personality rather than a leader whose articulated policies can transform the constituency into one of the renown, as well as uplift the standards of living for many. To this effect, a politician riding on the wave of a party popularity is likely to be elected than an aspirant who can offer alternative leadership. T