Dictators are not the answer.

Being the boss is not easy, is it? Being the boss in a "democracy" is twice as difficult, isn't it? They may have vastly different administrations but the President and the Governor of Nairobi City County have remarkably similar problems. The massive edifice that is the Government of Kenya and the glorified city council that is the County Government of Nairobi City suffer the same problems, both political and administrative, and for both leaders it is attractive to flirt with the idea of authoritarianism in the short term to set things on an even keel for future glory.

The former could do it, but it would come at a great cost. The latter can't even fire slothful workers without it attracting the wrath of his Senator, his Woman Representative, his vengeful MCAs or the shadowy cabal of city MPs who don't seem to do much other than get shot at in mysterious locations.

Going by the commentary by respected columnists, the idea of a a dictator is gathering pace among the intelligentsia. In their minds, it is simplicity itself to round up the corrupt and the lazy, remove them from the administrative corridors of power, and banish them to purgatory for all time so that the honest and the diligent can get the economy running like a well appointed Rolex. That would be so before the internet and the information revolution; it is not so simple any more when it is easy to link private developers and sundry other pigs-at-the-trough to those making the make-me-a-dictator proposals.

China and North Korea have a done a bang up job of policing the internet; one is an economic powerhouse that can afford to do so, the other is a Stalinist prison camp where the only one who's free is the one buried six feet under. Even if the Government of Kenya wanted to do it, the irreverent innovation of the Nairobian would all but guarantee that dictatorial proposals were exposed and lampooned for their sheer lunacy. Kenyans will continue to bitch about the cost of this, that or the other, but only the elite think that re-imposing KANU Era controls is a good idea.

Democracy is expensive and chaotic, but it is the only way, today, to assure the people of involvement in the questions of the day. The people, so far, are content to elect slothful, mindless zombies to make decisions on their behalf. The Second Liberation will not end until the people realise that the Second Liberation was not about the election of their favoured sons or daughters, nor the blind faith reposed in their tribal chiefs, but about the calibre of the men and women who would seek to impose order on them. Until Kenyans can make that intellectual leap of the imagination, water shortages, traffic jams and terrorist attacks will continue to plague them. Dictators will not be the answer.