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{
    "id": 712427,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/712427/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 430,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to contribute to this Bill. I think this amendment is a brief one and it is mainly to increase the number of people who fall within the honours category. But even as we speak about honouring our people, I think our process of identifying and honouring our heroes is still, to me, too subjective. We tend to consider many things apart from what really are the contributions that lead to making our nation great. I have spoken here before, both when I was in the 10th Parliament and when I was privileged to come back to this 11th Parliament. It has disheartened me the way Kenya tends to take its true achievers for granted. There is no gainsaying that if there is one thing that brings Kenyans together, it is the exploits of our sportsmen and sportswomen, particularly our athletes. About two or so months ago, we saw what our young men and women did in Rio de Janeiro with a lot of difficulty. That is managing with a very corrupt and very selfish sports management and organisation in this country. Still, they went there and conquered the world. I have never understood why it cannot be automatic for a country like Kenya to grant one of the highest honours to anybody who can win an Olympic gold medal. In simple terms, Eluid Kipchoge winning an Olympic gold medal in the marathon simply means that if you put all the seven billion people in this world to run the marathon race at that point in time, he would be the best of them all. One wonders how somebody who can demonstrate such an exalted degree of exploit does not qualify for an automatic honour to enter into the honours of this country. I think this is where the problem is. I have passed through some countries which truly go out of their way to honour their heroes. If you go through some of the main airports of the United States (US), one of the faces that confront you - one of the faces you meet - is that of Jesse Owens. I do not think there is anybody sitting in this House today who was alive at the time Jesse Owens won four Olympic gold medals in Berlin in 1936, but they still honour him today. This honour does not just go to what you would call ordinary people. Anybody who has been to Accra, Ghana, would see how much the founding father of that nation, the late Kwame Nkrumah is revered. Young people are made to understand the place of Kwame Nkrumah in that country and yet when you look at us here in Kenya, for a long time, we have this contradiction of having the resting place of the founding father of this nation. The remains of the late Jomo Kenyatta are being placed in a place which is largely out of bounds for all the people of Kenya. Therefore, I want to laud my good friend, Hon. Muthomi Njuki of Chuka/Igambang’ombe because of what he has done especially to young Kenyans. This inability, reluctance and in fact, refusal by successive leaderships in this country to honour our heroes--- What we are inadvertently doing is to deliberately place a disconnect between the youth of this country and those who have made this country what it is today. Granted, we have of course had our shortcomings but I believe that as much as those shortcomings have been there, there are people in this country who truly care about this country and would like to learn from those shortcomings to make Kenya a great nation. This is because I am one person who believes that the true potential of this country is yet to be realised. Among those things that make us not realise the true potential of this country is these prejudices we have allowed; these unnecessary prejudices. No one has empirically proved how much these prejudices are helping us, in our little segmented positions, progress. To the contrary, I think these prejudices have been a drag on the progress of this nation. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}