• For instance, when did the incumbent President become a dynast?
• Those who supported him in 2002, 2013, and 2017 have certainly realised he is cut from the wrong cloth.
It is scandalous that State power has been confined to two tribes for 56 years in a Kenya of 43 communities. The dynasty propaganda, therefore, falls flat like the hustler hoax. The narrative hides about 60 years of skewed national power relations.
The dynasty narrative rides on low civic consciousness and mass poverty. Politicians, who are cuts from the old order in word and deed, do not want to redress these inequities. They exploit tension-generating inequalities for their survival.
For instance, when did the incumbent President become a dynast? Those who supported him in the 2002, 2013, and 2017 presidential elections have certainly realised he is cut from the wrong cloth. Really! And authors of the lie still claim respect for authority.
The Kikuyu-Kalenjin stranglehold on state power is the danger to national cohesion and a just socioeconomic order. Anything else is a diversion. But, it is also wrong to make the Kalenjin believe they are safe only with a homeboy as president.
National discord will persist for as long as the presidency is abused by people who see state power as an opportunity to plunder. Or as an occasion to postpone resolution of historical injustices, or to perpetuate ethnic duopoly.
It’s also absurd to tie the Kikuyu to the lie that they can secure their interests only when a Kikuyu is president. The fallacy should go for Kenya to reconstruct. A cat does not have to be black or white to kill rats. The good cat kills rodents.
The Jomo Kenyatta-Moi-Kibaki-Uhuru Kenyatta vice-like grip on state power has created a volatile polity. The polity implodes every election cycle. Yet the injustice is sold to folks who talk of Kikuyu and Kalenjin as the president-producing tribes. Even victims of historical inequities believe the lie of Kikuyu-Kalenjin ‘dynasties’.
The Jomo Kenyatta regime had to invent Gema – Agikuyu, Embu and Meru – to expand his turf. But presidents have always come from the Kikuyu side of Gema. After supporting Kenyatta for 15, Kibaki for 10 years, and Uhuru for a decade, Meru and Embu, minor partners in Gema, want an order that considers their leaders can also ride the presidential motorcade.
There is no single Kenyan community called the Kalenjin. President Moi invented it to expand his sphere of influence. Kamatusa (Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana, and Samburu) was a creation of the Moi regime. The Nandi, Keiyo, Marakwet were buffer zones for Moi. Moi, from minority Turgen, needed the Kalenjin, and Kamatusa, to secure his regime.
Kenyatta was PM and president from 1963 to 1978, when he died. Moi was president from 1978 to 2002, when Kenyans rejected the Kanu monopoly, and his preferred successor Uhuru. Kibaki was president between 2002 and 2013. He used state machinery to manipulate the 2007 presidential election to claim a second term. The deep state did not want power to leave the House of Mumbi after 24 years of Moi.
When Deputy President William Ruto claims Jubilee won in 2013 in spite of the statuses of Raila and Kalonzo, he forgets state power decides who wins. Kibaki misused this power twice - 2007-2013 - to ensure the presidency remained in the ‘House’. President Uhuru, therefore, owes his status to Kibaki, not so much to Jubilee campaigns.
Kibaki ensured, even with a coalition government of 2008-2013, he controlled arms of government he needed to protect presidential power. Prime Minister Raila Odinga and VP Kalonzo Musyoka were sidelined from the power necessary to rig elections.
When Deputy President William Ruto claims Jubilee won in 2013 in spite of the statuses of Raila and Kalonzo, he forgets state power decides who wins. Kibaki misused this power twice - 2007-2013 - to ensure the presidency remained in the ‘House’. President Uhuru, therefore, owes his status to Kibaki, not so much to Jubilee campaigns.
In 2022, the DP, a Kalenjin, wants to succeed Uhuru, a Kikuyu, to perpetuate 79 years of two-tribe dominance. The Kikuyu-Kalenjin stranglehold on state power should be a matter of public interest and discussion ahead of the 2022 election.
National discord will persist for as long as the presidency is abused by people who see state power as an opportunity to plunder. Or as an occasion to postpone resolution of historical injustices, or to perpetuate ethnic duopoly.
Kenya does not need dynasties. Similarly, there is no need to stigmatise leadership with the hustler hoax. The obsession of this hoax is attaining power by all means possible. Kenya needs leaders who stand above the fray of tribal steak-holding. The ethnic monopoly of state power is the anomaly that national leadership should address to reconstruct Kenya.