The sunset year of the Kibaki Presidency is slowly ticking away.  And on midnight 29th December, 2012 President Kibaki will have completed his constitutional and lawfully sworn in five years of service as President of the Republic of Kenya since 30th December, 2007.

This country will have to hold Presidential Elections well before 29th December, 2012 if it has to surmount the infamy of having President Kibaki serve as an unelected President beyond 29th December, 2012 a situation that has never been permitted since Kenya gained independence in 1963.

The Kibaki Presidency has without any doubt and more particularly the 2nd term of his Presidency been a boon to the Centre and Eastern part of the Republic of Kenya starting from Nakuru going to Nairobi, Central Kenya, Eastern Province, Coast Province, North Eastern Province and as an accident North Western Kenya.  The unveiling of the trillion shillings Konza City IT Project in Eastern Province, Nairobi-Thika Highway, ongoing completion of construction of major road by passes for Nairobi, the proposed half trillion shillings railway network and roads infrastructure for Nairobi and the crown jewel of all the projects being the launch of the construction of the Lamu Port and the Lamu-Isiolo – South Sudan and Ethiopia road network and oil pipeline.  These projects will be the landmarks of the legacy of the Kibaki Presidency.

The foregoing infrastructural projects are going to define the economic trajectory of Kenya for the next fifty to one hundred years.  The ultimate beneficiaries of the economic configurations that are unfolding under the Kibaki Vision 2030 are those who reside in the regions where they are.

The traditional over one hundred years of the Kenyan economy being centre pieced on the Mombasa Port, Mombasa – to Uganda Trans Kenya Highway and Railway is about to be upset and given short shrift once and for all with the opening of the Lamu Port to South Sudan – Ethiopia highways and oil pipelines.  Mind you the Mombasa –Malaba Highway is nowhere in the pipeline of being made a 10 lanes highway, nor is the oil pipeline about to be extended from Eldoret to Malaba or the railway line to be modernized and made viable.

Western Kenya, Nyanza Province, Rift Valley West of Nakuru and parts of North Rift are not anywhere in the scheme of the mega billion shillings Vision 2030 infrastructure projects that the Kibaki Presidency is now in a hurry to unveil so that they cannot be altered by the next President of Kenya if he or she deems them too one region centred.

West fm states that it is thus imperative that Western Province, Nyanza Province, Rift Valley West of Nakuru do critically strategize to deliver the 4th Presidency of Kenya to the region if they have to rise like the phoenix from the curse of economic marginalization, neglect and retardation.

Let nobody be mistaken, the Presidency and who occupies it in Kenya shall have the greatest bearing as to how a region from whence he hails economically progresses for a long time to come.  It is a pity that the western part of Kenya remains an afterthought in the current economic scheme of things of the Kibaki Presidency despite Hon. Wycliffe Oparanya perching at the head of the Ministry for the last four years as the Minister for Planning and National Development and Vision 2030.

Yes, courageous visionary foresighted men and women from Western Kenya, Nyanza, Rift Valley West of Nakuru must urgently put in place strategies and work on them to deliver the 4th Presidency of the Republic of Kenya to the region.  Narrow party, political differences must be shunted aside and the focus on the Presidency be single minded and relentless.  And who said that the region cannot have agreement on pushing one single presidential candidate and yet have diversity of party representations in the Senate, National Assembly, County Governments?

West fm states that the West, yes the West, West of Nakuru will not rise unless it stakes out this election year for the Presidency and to win it for there are magical wands to the Kenyan Presidency that the people of Western Kenya must strive so as to have one from their region to occupy that hallowed office.

WEST FM EDITORIAL©2012