Four frames Uhuru hop*d would shape administration 

Fellow Kenyans,

It gives me great pleasure to celebrate the 58th Madaraka Day in this beautiful and beaming city of Kisumu.

I thank you the People and the leaders of Kisumu and the entire Nyanza Region for your warm welcome, and the great work that has gone into hosting this Year’s Madaraka Day Celebrations.

Fellow Kenyans,

This City and, indeed, this region are the gateways to the hinterlands of Eastern and Central Africa; a special position they have held for centuries, tying our peoples in bonds of trade, friendship, and family.  In recognition of this, my Brother, H.E. Évariste Ndayishimiye, the President of the Republic of Burundi, honours us with his presence here today.

Mr. President as the current Chairperson of the East Africa Community and given the great work your Administration is doing in bringing back peace and development to Burundi, I pledge to work together with all our regional brothers and sisters to see an end to economic sanctions against your Country.

To celebrate the cultural diversity of Kenya and strengthen our nationhood, in the year 2015, I issued the Executive Order on rotational hosting of our national Day’s celebrations in the Counties.

Today, Kisumu joins the growing list of counties that have played host to a national day celebration. That is Counties of Nakuru; Nyeri; Machakos; Meru; Kakamega; Narok; Mombasa; and Kisii.

This tradition allows for a focus on the positive contributions being made under Devolution, while also enabling the hosting County to showcase itself on the national stage…

Kisumu is not only the historical hub of East African co-operation; it was also the intellectual incubator of some of the leading ideas behind our liberation movement.

The national motto of “Harambee”, even though an import from India was, for instance, introduced as a political rallying-call in Kisumu city during the 1950s. After independence, our Founding Fathers popularized it as the national mantra of “Pulling Together”.

Similarly, and led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kisumu was the epicenter of the push to release Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and the “Kapenguria Six” from their illegal detention by the colonizers.

Furthermore, during the detention of those liberation heroes at Kapenguria, union leaders from this region joined other Kenyans and quickly stepped into the gap to ensure that the liberation momentum was not lost.

It was pre-independence leaders from this region, who taught us that attaining self-rule was not a one-man race. Rather, it was a relay in which, if one set of runners fell out, another set was ready to continue the race.

With such a well-appointed history of the struggle, and the history of reconciliation we are making today, there cannot be a better place to commemorate Madaraka Day today than Kisumu City.

Fellow Kenyans,

Today we celebrate close to six decades of self-rule. We celebrate the return of our liberties, the restoration of our dignity, and the democratic resilience we have built over the last 58 years.

Today, we also celebrate the war heroes who gave their all, including their lives, for us to be free. They sacrificed their freedom and their lives, knowing fully well that sometimes those who plant the seeds of freedom may NEVER enjoy the fruits that follow.

For their martyrdom, we honour our fallen heroes this Madaraka Day. And we do it fully conscious that “…a nation that does not honour its heroes, will receive no honour amongst nations” – to quote one thinker.

As we celebrate self-rule today, we must also honour our Founding Fathers who dared to imagine Kenya - the bold and selfless Architects of this our great Republic. And from this region of Luo Nyanza, we honour among others, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who led the campaign for the release of Jomo Kenyatta and the “Kapenguria Six”; Tom Joseph Mboya who was the architect of our Economic Blue Print at independence; and Achieng Oneko who was one of the “Kapenguria Six”.

Fellow Kenyans,

Today as we honour all the Founding Fathers of this Nation, we must also recall their Principles of Nationhood. I will mention just a few of those principles.

One, they taught us that a progressive nation is one that is in continuous conversation with itself. This is because nationhood is a negotiated process that needs constant alignments and adjustments in the pursuit of perfection.

The architects of Madaraka, however, warned us, a fact that I will not tire to remind you, that in making such adjustments and alignments, we must avoid the ‘paralysis of constitutional rigidity’.

Two, they taught us that self-rule is not an end in itself; it is a means to a greater end. Indeed as T.J. Mboya once said, “…Only through freedom and human rights could a people cooperate fully with their government”. But for freedom and human rights to be realized, the paradox of choices must be resolved.

Three, they revealed the paradox when they emphasized that self-rule is the granting of opportunities, accompanied by the burden of choice. Every opportunity in the exercise of freedoms and self-rule, must be tempered by the consequences of choice.

Every right granted must have a corresponding responsibility. And those who enjoy opportunities, but neglect the burden of choice, cannot be said to be truly free. This paradox of choices and freedoms applies to both individuals and institutions…

Fellow Kenyans,

Now I will turn to the National Question of our times as is tradition every Madaraka Day.

But before I do so, I wish to remind us of an instruction left behind by the Founding Father of our Nation, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. He said: “…Our children, born and unborn, may learn about the heroes of the past. But our present task is to make ourselves the architects of the future”.

This was a call to action. It was a call to predict the future by creating it. And against this background, the National Question of the moment must be posed.

If, indeed, freedom is nothing but an opportunity to become better, how have we enriched what the Founding Fathers placed in our custody? Have we made it better than we found it? And has Kenya occupied its rightful place in the society of Nations as a result of our improvements? That is the National Question of the day. And in response to this Question, I will use the “FOUR FRAMES” of our liberation struggle that have informed My Administration. The first is economic. This frame is informed by the notion that political freedom in the absence of economic freedom is nothing but an illusion.

It was on March 4, 2013 when then 51-year-old Uhuru Kenyatta was elected Kenya’s first president under the Constitution of 2010.