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Prof Anyang' Nyong'o's "Road to Singapore" deserves serious reading because it arrives when Kenya is preparing to leave Vision 2030 behind. Public debt is pressing against national ambition, young people are entering an economy that cannot absorb them properly, and President William Ruto is searching for a longer development story than annual Finance Bills can provide.
Nyong'o's central argument is difficult to dismiss. Kenya has had many false starts. We have written plans, created institutions, built roads, changed governments and announced fresh beginnings, yet the country has not crossed into the productive depth expected of a high-income industrial society.
Nations that transform do not stumble into prosperity. They protect continuity, discipline implementation and hold a national purpose long enough for one generation to hand it to another.
That argument carries particular weight coming from him. Nyong'o was part of the intellectual imagination that gave Kenya the National Economic and Social Council and later Vision 2030. He also comes from a social democratic tradition that should understand development as something deeper than growth figures and investor confidence. Road to Singapore should be welcomed with respect, but not received with folded hands.
