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President William Ruto during the launch of the national conversation on Vision 2060 at KICC, Nairobi. [PCS]
Kenya’s political elite has once again retreated to its favorite pastime: escaping the harsh, suffocating realities of the present by packaging grand illusions for the distant future. The recent state-driven enthusiasm surrounding Vision 2060, a thirty-five-year blueprint promising to propel the country into first-world status, would be inspiring if it were not such a tragic exercise in national escapism.
There is something deeply comforting about dreaming. It allows a nation to imagine itself as richer, more prosperous, more industrialized and better governed than it is today. But there is also a danger in dreaming too far ahead. We can become so fascinated by the destination that we forget to build the road.
When a household cannot afford tonight's meal, it does not sit down to draft an architectural blueprint for a mansion it hopes to occupy three decades later. Yet the state insists on asking citizens to fix their gaze on 2060 while the economic house is burning down in real time. Dreaming of mid-century glory while the basic foundations of development lie in ruins is not visionary leadership; it is an abdication of governance.
