To: H.E. Hon. Mwai Kibaki, President of the Republic of Kenya

Merry Christmas and happy New Year Mr. President. It is four years since your government won power in a landslide general election. You came into office at a time when Kenyans were fed up with many years of dictatorship, poor governance and institutionalized corruption at the local and national levels. The rule of law and constitutionalism were principally relegated to the periphery, as patronage, mediocrity and sycophancy became the official order of transacting government business. You were well aware of this dissatisfaction during your campaigns.

Kenyans looked up to you together with your other rainbow colleagues to rescue our mother country from imminent collapse. An international opinion poll rated Kenyans the world's most optimistic people. How could they not be optimistic when their favourite presidential candidate had made wonderful pre-election pledges to them?

Mr. President, you pledged this nation and the world at large that upon your election as the third president of Kenya, you would ensure the creation of 500,000 direct and indirect jobs per year, construction of 150,000 low cost housing structures, free universal primary education, affordable healthcare and a new constitution in 100 days of your government being in office. We now understand that your party never said that these 100 days would run consecutively. What a way to take the conscious of a nation for a ride!! You asked us to keep this scorecard and judge you with it after your term. Your interim report card indicates that you have failed in most of these major pledges.

Mr. President, do you remember when you were involved in the unfortunate road accident at the peak of the National Rainbow Coalition of Kenya campaigns. Whenever you briefed the nation on your recovery progress, you would say that you had recovered and that only "our leg" was paining. Your leg had become our leg, your pain, our pain. You had unveiled a national symbol of unity, the rebirth of Kenya where one person's tribulations meant that all of us were not at peace. Many Kenyans believed that the new spirit would revamp the country, eradicate tribalism and encourage national integration.

You followed the same path during your historic inauguration at Uhuru Park. Several heads of governments by your side, you entered into a binding social contract with over thirty million Kenyans. About one million people witnessed the signing ceremony. In your speech, you promised a fair combination of the youth and the aged in public appointments. You declared doom on the era of roadside declarations and ushered in a culture of meritocracy in such appointments. Kenyans were elated that at long last a worthy government was taking over power.

As you mark your fourth year in office, you have reneged in most of these election pledges. Prof. Ghai did not get the new constitution in a hundred days as you personally assured him. He left a very disappointed and worried man. It is a shame that in your successive new year messages including this year and during most public holidays, you have been promising Kenyans a new constitution that never is. You are aware that we almost succeeded but we allowed our narrow political interests to kill the process, throwing millions of shillings already into the dustbin of plunder and waste.. You never provided the statesmanship required in solving the stalemate, you instead allowed your ministers to mutilate the process.

On creation of 500, 000 jobs annually, your government claims to have achieved this without giving any tangible evidence. Some of us who live in the city slums understand that the unemployment situation is worsening. Key government positions are still in the hands of those past their retirement age. Some of the civil servants have been recalled back from retirement and given lucrative jobs while a large number of graduands are in the business of 'tarmacking.' This is not very surprising since your own cabinet is largely a wealthy council of elders who have been amassing wealth since the colonial days. Their main interest is to protect their wealth and not to provide jobs to youthful leaders. It is surprising that most well educated and dynamic members of parliament are condemned to assistant ministerial positions while the aged generation and some barely literate members of parliament are flying ministerial flags. Managing modern institutions require younger, creative and reform minded leaders who have better understanding of emerging global trends in governance and can respond to such changes without misplaced and defensive rigidities.

Your government has also failed in the construction of the 150,000 low cost housing structures. In fact one wonders whether this programme is in the government agenda. The existence of a housing ministry has not improved the situation. Slum upgrading is very slow and it is not known whether it will become a reality or it will die a false dream, a reincarnation of the failures associated with the nyayo projects during Daniel Arap Moi's presidency.

The same fate befalls the health care sector. Efforts by ministry of healthy to develop an affordable health programme have been met with mixed reactions by the executive. Kenyatta National Hospital is disaster, which accompanies the sick to die quickly. It takes an average of ten hours to admit a patient at the hospital. Getting a stretcher or a bed is a luxury, which only a few get the opportunity to share. After the horrifying admission procedures, a patient will hardly be attended to unless the patient's relatives pressurize the doctors. A bill is however raised whether the sick has been treated or not. Many patients are discharged without feeling the hands of a doctor yet they are charged exorbitantly for the shared bed.

The only success story has been the free universal primary education. Though an expensive exercise, your government has tried to sustain the programme, which is a requirement of one of the international instruments. However, many children are still out of school or do not benefit from the programme since they attend private or informal schools. Over sixty percentages of school children in the slums attend informal schools. Most slums in Nairobi have one or no government school. Due to lack of school fees most of them drop out of school. Girls get solace in early marriages while boys easily indulge in drug abuse and other criminal activities. Mr. President, our children have a right to equal consideration in government programmes irrespective of their poverty levels.

Mr. President, here are some areas which you need to address with urgency as part of your new year dreams: You must now begin the war against corruption. In the last four years, you have set up a number of anti-corruption institutions but little tangible results have been recorded. The war against corruption requires more political will than institutions. Sometimes anti-corruption institutions are established to delay the cause of justice to protect our political cronies. The war against corruption will begin the day we shall go for our closes friends and relatives who have been implicated. If we cannot prosecute those implicated in corruption, where then lies our difference with the previous regime, which is largely in the current regime anyway?

You have been accused of killing multi-party democracy through appointing ministers and assistant ministers from the opposition benches without consulting with the leadership of this country. As a respected elderly statesman, you should bequeath this country a legacy of strong political party system. Basic courtesy demands that you knock at somebody's door before entering. This simple logic also extends to politics. The government of national survival is good for the interest of a few but dangerous for a majority of Kenyans. Contrary to your pre-election pledge of a lean and meritocratic cabinet, today we have a bloated and inefficient cabinet with some ministries' responsibilities overlapping or not well defined. A cabinet minister even lacks an office six months after his appointment! This cabinet is not sustainable and is a serious strain on the exchequer but who said that survival is cheap?

Mr. President, you cannot close your ears courtesy to the comfort of state house and forget that the security situation in this country is deteriorating. Regular clashes in the Rift Valley and a number of slums in Nairobi do not augur well for the credibility of your government. Which kind of government is this, which cannot protect her people? You must come up with viable solutions to this perennial problem considering that it is alleged that it is connected to the forth-coming general elections. The excessive force your government agencies employ to brutalize hawkers and opposition politicians could be better used to restore sanity in the security systems of this country.

Finally my president, in 2002, Kenyans gave you a mandate to register yourself in the books of history. You can choose to join the league of despots such as Mobuto Sese Seko, Sani Abacha and Robert Mugabe or become another Mandela or Julius Nyerere by giving Kenyans back their leg, their national pride.

History is very democratic. It lets you design your own destiny but also allows you to experience the effects of your own decisions.