Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 782536,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/782536/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 403,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We were supported by great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a great Prime Minister; and I am glad that I learnt under his feet. Therefore, nationhood is such a thing that we cannot relegate to any other place other than the first place. Nationhood is always embodied in a country’s flag and emblems and as you rightly pointed out, the boundaries of that nation is what constitutes its statehood and pride. Later on, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I became the Chairman of the Amateur Athletics Association of Kenya (AAAK), and we went to international games with athletic celebrities like Henry Rono, Ben Jipcho, Naftali Temu, Robert Ouko and Julius Sang. We looked small in the international world, but in that marvelous running when the national anthem was sung, we became a great nation. You could see Kenyans carrying national flags in a very celebratory mood. The flag did not create any division and we did not know our tribes; we only knew that we were Kenyans. We said that we were proud to be Kenyans because of that single moment alone. Today, we cannot continue condoning the temporary, artificial division which is taking us down the destructive road. We must call it quits and start calculating where the rain started beating us. That is why this Bill is such an important one, because it brings to mind a clarion call for all Kenyans that if you fly that flag, you fly it sentimentally because you feel that we belong to a nation called Kenya. One feels an element of equality in that flag. One believes that he or she is a participant in that flag. One believes that he or she is a part and parcel of what is happening at that moment. However, where are we today? We are almost in pieces. It took an election and the dispute to arise and this country almost went to the dogs. We cannot blame the younger generations because we have not put enough education and interest in them to appreciate and understand that there is dignity in working together as a group, a people and a nation. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe that if we take the direction we are taking now, there could not have been a better moment than that handshake. This is because for me, that handshake has given us the momentum to move forward in the correct direction. It is not out of place. That is why at every moment and at every single opportunity, I continue making a call that to whoever is outside the boat to join Noah’s Ark, because we are just about to sail off. We cannot leave this nation suffering in poverty or going the way it is going. We only need some small rainfall of 50 millimeters and the whole country is flooded. What does that mean to us? It means that we have lost discipline in our environmental conservation and in the manner in which we do things, whether at the county or the national level. The level of corruption is beyond recognition in this land. Therefore, we must have a paradigm shift so as to bear upon the minds of Kenyans that we need to do something more powerful and more interesting in order to weave the nation together. I am sure that somebody listening to what I am saying today in Kisii County or in Kirinyaga County – where I had an opportunity to get a wonderful wife from – will appreciate that we need to be one team all together."
}