• It has been more than fifty years since Hon. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka joined politics; he is now aspiring to become president of this blessed republic, and I am expected to sing a song to welcome him. And he is not alone; all our top leaders are old guard.

The fear of change ranks high among the fears of mankind. A newborn baby comes into this world screaming, trying to resist the new change of environment. 

While unpleasant, this transition is necessary in life. As we grow, we are supposed to outgrow that fear of change and begin to embrace the inevitable.

Martin Luther King Jr. aptly said, “The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo and has an almost morbid fear of the new. 

For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea... the soft-minded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness.”

This holds true for Kenya in general. We seem to be so afraid of the new that we keep recycling the same old crop of leaders. Let me illustrate. 

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It has been more than fifty years since Hon. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka joined politics; he is now aspiring to become president of this blessed republic, and I am expected to sing a song to welcome him. And he is not alone; all our top leaders are old guard.

Is it that we don’t have newer leaders, or do we just fear electing new people? Yes, experience counts, but do we have to get stuck with the old guard simply because we fear change? What if we risked the status quo and went for a new crop of leaders? Must we keep seeing the same faces in parliament?

Of course, I know you will quip the old adage, “better the devil you know than the angel you don’t know.” But the same wise men of old also said that change is as good as a rest. Could it be that the break, the rest we so desperately yearn for, will only come if we cast aside our fear of change and give ourselves a new breed of leaders? 

Not necessarily young, but new. As a small boy in primary school, we sang songs to welcome Kalonzo Musyoka, the then Assistant Minister for Works and Physical Planning. 

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Charles Mutua is a Leadership Trainer at Sharpsword Resources and a Senior Pastor-Gospel Outreach Church, Egerton.