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{
    "id": 1110112,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1110112/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 98,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Githua Isaac Ngugi",
    "speaker_title": "The Nominated Senator",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "these honorable men and women this afternoon is an exemplification that God is indeed faithful. Secondly, my profound gratitude goes to the President and my party leader, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, for making this dream a reality. Further, my heartfelt appreciation goes to the rank and file of my party, Jubilee, for proving that a political party in these sides of the Sahara can be an incubator for bringing forth youth leadership to the national stage. I remain grateful. I also wish to recognize and appreciate the strong family foundation and support accorded to me by my father, Mr. Paul Githua, my mother, Mama Martha Muthoni, my elder sister Alice Wamaitha, my kid brother, Simon Karige and my little sister Mary Nyawira. You have all been supportive and kept cheering me on, even when it was not fashionable to do so. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the place of the youth in any society can never be underestimated and more specifically, in Kenya where we have a very youthful population. According to the last population census, youth aged 18 to 35 years comprise of 30.5 percent of our entire populace and are a great potential source of social and economic energy for the country. Yet, unfortunately, much of this energy remains untapped. As the protector of the counties, the Senate has the opportunity of righting this by encouraging counties to grant youth more responsibility over budgets and policies by providing youth-led spaces for them to mobilize their peers and aggregate their preferences by directly allocating them budgets and advocating for and designing policies with them. This would be in tandem with Article 55 of the Constitution, which grants the youth the right of inclusion in the economic agenda of this nation. Democracy and development can only move forward on a positive trajectory if we embrace transparency in the electoral process. Having said this, I wish to address the Kenyan youth today to encourage them to come out in large numbers and register as voters during the just-launched voter registration exercise by the IEBC. This will enable them to exercise their democratic right of voting to put in place a responsible government, including Parliament and county governments that will help steer this great country to the well-deserved political prominence it is capable of achieving. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as a teenager who witnessed the ravages and skirmishes of divisive elections whose dreams were nearly cut short by ethnic antagonism, whose family fabric was tattered and displaced from what I knew all my life as home only to seek refuge in Nyandarua as an IDP, I had very many unanswered questions to God, to the Government, to our leaders, to our communities and to my family. It is an experience that you would not wish upon even to your worst sworn enemy. Never again should the dreams of our younger generation be sacrificed on the altar of negative ethnicity and belligerent political competition. I take this early opportunity to acknowledge the successes and challenges of past parliaments and honor those who heroically struggled to bring freedom and justice to our land in the first and second liberations. I fully take cognizance of, recognize and stand"
}