BY LOUREEN ALMA
Its called public participation
But to me, how can a meeting belong to the public
when the public never even knew it was happening?
How do you expect wananchi to show up
when the invitation travels slower than bad roads in the village
when information moves from one person to another like a secret nobody wants to share?
And funny enough,
news of corruption arrives before breakfast,
but news of a public forum arrives after the meeting is over.
The youth, the same people politicians call “leaders of tomorrow,”
are treated like strangers in their own future
No posters, No announcements and No serious mobilization.
Just silence
And that silence is dangerous,
because it slowly teaches young people that their opinions do not matter.
Even village elders,
the people who know every corner of the community,
the people who know every family by name,
are left asking, “Kumbe there was a meeting?”
And when an elder says, “We were never informed,”
that is not a complaint, its evidence
Evidence that something is broken.
Because public participation today often feels like a script that was written long ago.
The decisions are made, The signatures are ready
And the budget is already smiling
Then wananchi are called at the last minute to come and decorate the process.
To fill chairs, to appear in photos and to become proof that consultation happened.
Ati, “Give us your views.” Views gani?
When the meal has already been cooked, served and eaten,
and the public is invited only to wash the dishes.
We sit in overcrowded halls
holding microphones that seem to work only for praise.
The moment truth speaks, the room becomes uncomfortable.
And somehow the meeting ends before the real questions are answered.
Sometimes it feels like even the walls know, what the outcome will be
before the first person walks through the door.
And democracy, that beautiful promise we were given,
sits quietly in the corner, watching, ignored.
Because participation without communication is not participation.
It is performance. A show, A ceremony, A checkbox.
The youth are willing
They are ready and informed enough to contribute.
But the system keeps feeding them scraps of information.
By the time the news reaches the village, it is already exhausted,
already late, already useless.
And when wananchi finally speak, their opinions rise into the air
like smoke from a cooking fire
visible for a moment, then disappearing without a trace.
We are constantly told, “Your voice matters.”
But why does it feel like our voices are knocking on doors
that were locked long before we arrived?
True public participation should be a conversation.
Not an announcement.
Not a public relations exercise.
Not a gathering where listening is performed but never practiced.
Because when people are not informed, they are excluded.
And when they are excluded, they are robbed of ownership.
A community that is never consulted slowly loses faith.
And a democracy that fears the voices of its people stops being a democracy.
It becomes power speaking to itself,
while pretending to listen.
CHANGING THE MINDSET
LOUREEN ALMA.
