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All eyes on youthful appointees in new assignment

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020 00:00 | By
President Uhuru Kenyatta
President Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo/Courtesy
President Uhuru Kenyatta

Hesbon Owilla      

In his recent Cabinet reshuffle, President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed seven youths into various posts, mostly Chief Administrative Secretaries.

One of the youthful appointees is Nadia Ahmed Abdalla,  who worked at the Mombasa county government.

She was named as CAS in the ICT ministry. This is pointer to the huge potential that Kenyan youth have and must exploit.

You see, the notion that being young or being part of a political formation will earn you a position in government must be disabused. 

None of these young Kenyans was appointed because they are young. In fact, what matters is how they will execute their roles and if they fail to deliver, they will go home and set a poor precedence for fellow youth.  

It may appear to many that these young men are lucky as they will enjoy the trappings of power within government corridors, but nothing can be further from the truth.

They are Kenyans to whom much has been given and they are poised at pedestals that will open pathways for the next generation of young public servants. But only if they deliver.

Their success is likely to be a harbinger of higher aspirations for many youth in universities, high schools and even primary schools regardless of whichever hamlet they hail from.  

A few months ago, Kenyans were up in arms hollering about  old appointees and this time round the president has responded by putting young Kenyans right in the dockets that matter most.

The new appointees are well poised to support policy that will accelerate cutting-edge innovations that will then inform pathways for development. 

Indeed, the government has for a long time toyed with the idea of encouraging young people to get into agriculture—livestock farming and the attendant agribusiness ventures. Most of us can still recall the Ukulima ni swag campaign. 

However, with four youthful Kenyans at the echelons of policy formulation in four critical ministries of: Education (Zacharia Kinuthia); Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives (Anne Mukami); Health (Mercy Mukui); ICT and Youth Affairs (Maureen Magoma and Nadia Abdalla), there seems to be a ray of good tidings.

All they need to do is identify cleavages between their ministries and harness the points of confluence against the backdrop of technological innovations to address the plight of the many young unemployed Kenyans. 

A fairly vibrant innovation community will be looking at Magoma and Nadia to lead policy discussions that will provide the frameworks to scale up innovations, especially in areas that have the potential of addressing wider socioeconomic issues, including the plight of the younger demographic.

 This does not look like a mean feat and it would be important to see how much of support they receive to deliver in these critical dockets in the era of the fourth industrial revolution that is experiencing the disruptions of Internet of Things (IoTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data and Block Chain Technology. Granted, these four strands of technological revolution are likely to change all the aspects of the socioeconomic and political landscape.   

ICT innovations will certainly feed into our agricultural industry and inform news trends in agribusiness and anchor innovative ways that would address issues in health and education.  The onus is on the youthful appointees to make a difference. —The writer is a PhD candidate in political communication

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