JAMILA'S MEMO: The leaders we need

On my memo tonight, have you noticed? Suddenly, everybody wants to serve us.

Posters are appearing everywhere. Mheshimiwa 2027. Incoming: our next MP, our next Governor, our next Senator.

There are those already in office who want another term. Those who once held office, lost, and now want to come back. Those who have never been elected but have decided that 2027 is their year.

Of course, almost all of them will tell you the same thing: Wananchi wameniita.

But as all these declarations begin, perhaps we, the wananchi, should also make a declaration of our own.

Kenyans deserve a leader who takes their problems personally.

If the hospital has no medicine, that should bother you. If children are learning in overcrowded classrooms, that should bother you. If young people in your constituency have degrees but no jobs, that should bother you. If families are walking kilometres looking for water, that should bother you.

If somebody has to sell a goat to pay a hospital bill, surely that should disturb you more than who sat where at the last political rally.

The common mwananchi doesn't need you to live like them. But surely they deserve somebody who can feel what life is like for them.

Someone who understands that when the price of unga rises by fifty shillings, that is not merely an economic statistic. Somewhere, a family changes what it eats.

When university fees aren't paid, somebody's child is sitting at home.

When nurses strike for weeks, those aren't merely negotiations between government and a union. Somewhere, somebody is waiting for treatment.

That is what representation means. Taking somebody else's problem into the room where decisions are made and refusing to forget them once the door closes.

And perhaps as 2027 approaches, we should change our questions.

Instead of: Anatoka wapi? Ni wa chama gani? Ana pesa? Anaweza kushinda?

Maybe ask: What have you done? What do you believe? What problem are you coming to solve? Where were you before you needed my vote? And if you have already been in office, what did you do with the opportunity we gave you?

Remember, we are not electing you because you have waited long enough. Or because ni zamu yetu. Or because you lost last time and therefore somehow deserve compensation.

And perhaps we wananchi must accept our part in this too.

We cannot complain about bad leadership and then choose leaders based on tribe, money, slogans, crowds or who gives us something during campaigns.

If all we demand from a politician is a handout today, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when all they demand from us is a vote tomorrow.

But Kenya deserves better than transactional leadership.

So, to everyone putting up those posters for 2027, karibu sana.

Tell us wananchi wamekuita.

But this time, perhaps wananchi should answer: Fine. What exactly are you coming to do for us?