MUGA: The power of slogans

Earlier this week, I read one of the most coherent and persuasive accounts of how responsible government empowers the ordinary people in a country. And how this is done by investing in infrastructure projects that make it possible for individuals to enhance their economic productivity.

Now, in case what I have written thus far sounds like empty NGO-speak, let me elaborate.

The explanation was offered by the Interior PS Karanja Kibicho, when he toured the Thiba Dam project in Kirinyaga county, which is well on its way to completion.

His key point was that the availability of a much greater and very stable water supply, made possible by this dam when completed, would enable the rice farmers of the region to vastly increase their farm yields. And that this was a far greater step in Kenya’s fight against poverty than empty slogans shouted in public rallies.

To summarise the case for the benefits that will flow from this one dam, I would add that there is potential for expansion of the roughly 20,000 acres currently under irrigation to 30,000 acres once the additional water from the dam becomes available.

Also, Kenya is nowhere near being self-sufficient in rice and so there is plenty of room for the sale of any rice grown within Kenya. Additionally, the growing Kenyan middle class tends to prefer rice over the longstanding staple of ugali. So, there is an ever-increasing demand for rice.

No less significant is that the expansion of the rice fields is going hand in hand with the application of advanced rice-growing methods through support and guidance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

The programme is known as SHEP - Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion – and it emphasises motivating small-scale farmers to take a market-oriented “agribusiness” approach in all their farming activities.

There is also a long-term government policy dimension to this:

Roughly 70 per cent of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas. And any responsible government would seek to create opportunities for agrarian prosperity in such rural areas where the majority live, rather than leave the young men and women in the villages with no option but to join the migration into urban centres.

Consider all this and you can see that the Thiba Dam constitutes a model and a case study for true empowerment of rural communities.

For if indeed all of the 7,000 families that are registered as rice farmers under this scheme, end up roughly doubling their income through these improvements in infrastructure and other provisions, they will spend most of this money on locally-provided goods and services, thus generating a major economic stimulus for local small businesses.

That is the kind of progress rural Kenya needs.

However, be that as it may, I wait to see what will happen when the man whom Dr Kibicho indirectly criticised – the Deputy President William Ruto – next turns up in Kirinyaga with his usual retinue of Central Kenya MPs to preach the gospel of 'The Hustler Nation'.

Despite having no valid economic logic on its side, Dr Ruto’s slogan of introducing a 'bottom up' economic policy has gained traction with many Kenyan voters, and especially the youth.

My impression is that explanations of how targeted infrastructure projects will in time lead to new economic opportunities for entire communities, do not interest such youth. To tell them that the Thiba Dam project is now 65 per cent complete, is not what they would consider to be good news.

What they know from what social scientists would call their 'lived experience' is that they are 'at the bottom'.

And that Dr Ruto has a formula by which they can be raised 'up'. Which is what they have been hoping for all this time – to be 'up'.

Given these circumstances, I fully expect that Dr Ruto will receive his usual rapturous welcome when he next visits Kirinyaga.

And that the fact that this is one of the few places in Kenya where there is a farsighted government infrastructure project that will help lift thousands out of poverty, will count for very little.

Such is the power of an effective political slogan.