By Dr Paul Bundi Human beings are endowed with remarkable resilience, which can only be broken when they choose to give up. Says Viktor Frankl in his seminal book, Man's Search for Meaning; ''it is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future-sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in thd most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.'' Man's life is primarily driven by the desire for future, the unshakable belief that the future holds promise. We invariably cease to live when we think we have hit a dead end, or that there's nothing more to be had by living. Theoretically, there is no limit to man's achievement, and that is what drives men to wake up and strive day after day. The opposite is spiritual, psychological death, which manifests way ahead of physical death. Lesson? Losing today doesn't mean losing always. You can lose 10 times and win the 11th time. Or, you
BY Hon Koigi Wamwere For a long time I have agonized over who should have been second president of Kenya. Though Kenyatta was hardly perfect and was a dictator, before he assumed power, he was such an icon of freedom and symbol of African struggle for independence along with other African freedom fighters like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere that the position of first president in their country was theirs automatically. In Kenya, Oginga Odinga already led the African campaign for the release of Jomo Kenyatta from prison and his assumption of Kenya’s first president. Of all Kenyan politicians, Odinga was the most committed to the notion that Kenyatta should be the first president of Kenya and there is no evidence that he ever contemplated challenging him for presidency. When it comes to the second president of Kenya however, I believe Oginga Odinga should have succeeded Kenyatta, not Daniel Arap Moi. If Oginga Odinga never become the second president of Kenya, it is not because he did not qualify for it but because Kenyatta did not reciprocate the loyalty that Odinga had demonstrated for him. Had Kenyatta supported Odinga the way Odinga had supported him, Odinga would easily have become the second president of Kenya. Oginga Odinga should have become second president of Kenya because he was more qualified for it than Moi. Despite the hell I suffered at the hands of President Moi, I have no personal grudge against him. It is therefore for no personal grudge that I say that between Odinga and Moi, Odinga qualified for the second presidency of Kenya many times more than Moi. In fact, on account of his unparalleled courage and admission of Kenyan leaders’ failure to take Kenya to the Promised Land, at the time of Kenyatta’s death, no other Kenyan leader qualified more for second presidency of Kenya than Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. Finally, to use the words of Johnny Carson that choices have consequences, our choices of Kenyatta as our first president, Moi as our second president, Kibaki as our third president and Uhuru as our fourth president all have consequences that explain what Kenya is today – a land of unending calamities of terrorism, hunger, road carnage, deadly brews, incurable corruption, negative ethnicity and death of the national soul
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