Why the new Kenyan constitution is scary or exciting for job seekers

If you are one of those interesting people who 'jihurumia kuwa Mkenya' you finally have one GOOD reason to 'jivunia kuwa Mkenya', namely, a home-grown constitution.

Forty five long years later, we are out of the legal-strings of our benefactor, Britain, and are now living in our own house with rules we made ourselves.

If that doesn’t excite you, I have no idea what will at national level.

Take time to read the new Constitution

I have heard many people say the constitution of Kenya is long and bulky unlike the constitution of the United States. To those I like to say, well, just go there, live there and see it for yourself. There is no need to have a written document of rules if you already live those rules.

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In some years, we too can truncate our constitution to a mere few pages – in maybe about 200 years (like the US) when the values have become a way of life. Until then, we are stuck with a fairly detailed document.

I encourage you to read it for yourself. In its pages you may well see a niche where your skills can fit in under this new dispensation.

If you commit 20 minutes daily to read one 'spread' page of the newspaper like version, it will take you only one month and 17 days to read it cover to cover. That is a worthy investment of your time.

I am proud to be one of the few Kenyans who did read the constitution and I can say with confidence that its contents are both exciting and very scary.

Why is the new constitution scary?

Let me give you an analogy that many of us identify with.

Picture yourself taking on a new job after college or university. Then picture yourself moving into your own house, away from your parents or guardians. It is not a huge mansion, but it is yours and here you are king and you make the rules.

Since you make the rules, your music can be as loud as you desire it to be. But, there is no music system. But then, here you can bring in any music system you want to have. But then, wait, you need to buy, beg or borrow that music system.

If you will have a music system to blare, then the responsibility of where it comes from is in your hands.

Well, now imagine that you have worked some months, been able to save up some change and have bought a modest music system. But hey, wait!

If you do blare it as you desire, you have issues to contend with. To mention one only, you may well face the ire of the neighbours who can agitate for your eviction or better charge you with being a public nuisance. So for the sake of peace, it may be a good idea to turn down that volume.

Here is the gist of this analogy; now that we are on our own making our own rules, we have in one easy move increased our responsibility for nationhood and individual success to a staggering high.

Things that never mattered before now matter – very much.

How this new constitution will affect your search for jobs

First and very exciting is that there are a staggering number of opportunities and jobs that will spring up all over the place in a most fascinating way.

At cursory glance through the processes the new constitution has introduced, we are as a nation likely to enter into an employment deficit in less than five years. (That is a prophecy of sorts that you are welcome to remind me of in five years time.)

That means you can find more jobs in Kenya in a much easier way.

However! However, in the nearest future, it will be significantly harder to manoeuvre around on the grounds of 'kujuana'. Just watch at how much pressure the civil society alone will put on parliament to put laws in place.

So secondly, in the short run, Kenya is likely to become a value, skill and efficiency seeking nation. Though that is where your individual responsibility is hiding it is also the place where individual potential for failure is hiding.

You will be a citizen of a country with a constitutional framework that allows you to become whatever you desire to be ONLY if you can prove you have the skill and efficiency to provide the value required.

Previously when things didn’t seem to work at personal level, we were allowed to blame the government. In this new dispensation, the systems are such that if you cannot state your corporate, employable, salary-worth value, you will have to take the flack.

I am not sure how well prepared most job seekers are to deal with the reduction in corruption levels. Many people will soon find themselves in deeper lack of jobs and not because there are no jobs in Kenya, but because they do not know how to get a job without being fraudulent.

Take it from me, with this new dispensation you have tremendous responsibility for your life results because its authors carefully reigned in the animal we have always known called 'government'.

You have a lot of room to create your personal results; whether you win or lose will be entirely up to you. Are you ready for that responsibility? Can you manage it and make your life happen?