Ahithophel

And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father. (2Samuel 17:23)

This is a political post with spiritual parallels and vise versa, according to the lenses you will use to read it.

But I am addressing this to our president, Dr William Samoei Ruto, especially on the crisis facing this nation he leads.

This is best understood in the backdrop of my earlier posts on elders. And I write to you as someone who reads or has read the Bible since it is the one I use as a minister of the Gospel.

Ahithophel was a wise man, so wise that his counsel was treated almost at par with God’s word.

And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom. (2Samuel 16:23)

That is how good he was.

He fell out with David and chose to support his son Absalom to overthrow him.

And he succeeded.

But then something happened. As the kingmaker, either due to his ambition or the trust of the king, he became the general of the army.

And for probably the first time he blundered.

Why?

He was not able to see as well as a general as he had been seeing as an elder close to the king. No wonder his counsel was trashed.

However, as someone who had had unwavering trust, he was unable to deal with the rejection of his strategy and chose suicide instead.

This is the problem in your government, sir.

You have put overseers in the trenches. You have put consultants in charge of your ministries. You have made people who should be guiding you from outside in charge of the operations in your government.

Allow me to give a simple analogy.

How wise is it to take coffee tasters to the kitchen to brew coffee?

I had a friend who used to earn good money as a coffee taster. But he never had coffee in his house.

You simply cannot accurately assess the dish you have prepared.

Kick the consultants out of your government and pay them for consultation.

As a learned man, I know you value your fellow learned men.

But education and performance are two different things. Education and relevance are two different things.

Some of the best chefs do not have degrees. Some of the best entrepreneurs do not have any education. Some of the best musicians never attended music school. Many editors are not writers.

The fact that someone is an international consultant on the economy does not mean he will be best as the CEO of the economy in your government.

Like Ahithophel, he could be seeing farther than the moon out there but, on the trenches, may become useless, even dangerous.

That is because he could be completely out of touch with the reality on the ground. Or is that not the reason universities are called ivory towers?

Get executives who know Kenya beyond their degrees. Get street smart cabinet secretaries because they will not only know how to run the government, they will also know how the governed are faring.

Kick pastors out of state house for the same reason.

And I will give David as the example.

David had prophets. But they came to him when they either had a word from the Lord or David needed their spiritual counsel. It was the same with his wise men.

He did not make rooms for them in his palace.

Respect pastors but leave them in their churches. Otherwise, they will be entranced with the trappings of power and lose their spiritual connection that made you look for them in the first place.

Invite them when you need their counsel and not to have a cup of tea.

Can you imagine Nathan confronting David about Bathsheba over a cup of tea?

The prophetic voice must be distinct from relationships or leadership. Elisha was listened to by three kingdoms yet never once do we see him getting cosy with any of the kings.

The third thing you should do is kick those brash young experts who have absconded their duties in their constituencies.

Someone who does not know how the people who elected him feel about the laws he is making is unworthy of being your friend.

The fact that they and their businesses were targeted says this very clearly.

An MP is answerable to the people who elected him. Even a nominated MP is subject to the group he represents.

For the same person to serve you at the expense of the people he represents paints him as more corrupt than the Ahithophel I have talked about.

The expert may be unable to serve right because he can’t see properly when he is bogged by responsibilities.

But this character is more dangerous because he is actively distancing you from the people who elected you by not listening to them.

What made Kang’ata popular?

He told his boss what he did not want to hear, yet what his people wanted him to say.

There are better friends who will disagree with you for their constituents because that is why they were elected after all.

I will leave the rest to talk about corruption.

This is what I believe is making your government and in effect you unpopular.

Please look for elders on the ground.

Have friends who take their cars to Grogan for repair because they will gauge the temperature of the city very accurately as they take tea in those kiosks. Get friends who can walk the length and breadth of River Road and Nyamakima any time of the day without fear. They will get a feel of the economy there than from the best professional market research.

I know that you cannot be able to do that due to your position. Your security cannot risk you being in some places. Plus of course the presence of that security will make it impossible for you to see any picture clearly since the ground is cleaned before your arrival. Even roads are paved before you visit.

It is therefore important that you get dependable friends on the ground who will not be afraid to tell you how the ground is.

It is much better if these people are not looking for jobs or favors from you because only then can they be neutral. Otherwise, you will have people who hang on your coattails pretending to be the Ahithophels and Hushais to give their counsel to their benefit.

They must also be mature enough and secure enough to be able to offer any useful counsel.

Avoid younger people to avoid repeating Rehoboam’s and Joash’s mistakes. I suspect that is the reason you are in the mess you are in. You trusted and listened to young experts and neglected the old and probably uneducated friends who understand life since they raised these experts of yours.

In closing listen to these children.

They respect attention more than action. But action will make that attention sweeter.

You have raised this generation and so are not a stranger to how they are.

Listen to them.

Do what is in your power. Change what is possible. Sack the ones making the people who elected you hate you. Let them remember the next three years of your leadership with a good feeling.

Those small acts of acquiescence will go a long way in making them treat you as the father you are to them. And I am writing as a parent who also has the generation in my house. We are agemates, you know.

My prayer is that this gets into your hands.

God bless you and guide you in restoring sanity and hope in Kenya