Nigerian novelist, poet and critic who is regarded as a dominant figure in modern African literature, Chinua Achebe, once said, “Everybody counts in applying democracy.
And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government.”
In the same spirit, we are now advancing as a country democratically and the government and different institutions are now recognising voice of the majority.
Democracy comes from the Greek word demokratia, with demo meaning people and Kratia meaning power.
Kenyans now seem to be taking over the power, in their own small but powerful way, if recent events are anything to go by. This has been an interesting week indeed and a week that has shown that our civic culture is strengthening.
The President and the governor of Nairobi, donated money generously to the Catholic Church and after what I believe is pressure from Kenyans, the church declined the donation on grounds it did not align with some provisions of the constitution.
We are developing a civic culture that hopefully, will stay for a long time. A strengthened civic culture can be seen in the ways we treat one another, care for our country, solve common problems and disagree without hating each other.
Civic culture refers to the political and social attitudes, practices and behaviours that facilitate the functioning of a stable and participatory democracy.
It encompasses values such as trust in institutions, tolerance, civic engagement and active participation in political and social processes.
It is based on virtues such as responsibility, cooperation, commitment, loyalty, tolerance, solidarity and law abiding. The recent move by the Catholic Church is a sign there is active citizen participation in political processes.
I am sure many are glad this has happened, especially those passionate about change. We should not allow political efficacy to ever take place.
Political efficacy is when people feel their political input has no impact on political processes. The feeling can fuel bad governance since citizens don’t care anymore.
In the end, we as citizens, with the majority voice, are responsible for our own country. Nobody is coming to save us.
We need to celebrate the good that our leadership does and be very alert of the bad. We should ultimately ensure we have things right, before we go South.
We as citizens probably need more civic education on the articles of our constitution that seem to matter most. We need to shape our future by also acquainting ourselves on our democratic rights and responsibilities, take advantage of platforms such as calls for public participation, petitions and digital feedback platforms and call out, shamelessly the leaders and institutions that abuse office to strengthen our civic culture.
Civic culture is important because
it helps democratic systems function by encouraging citizens’ active
participation.
