I am always very keen to review criticism of anything I write, and so I gave much thought to the very harsh words thrown at me concerning my emphasis that the Coast elite must be appointed to high office by anyone who receives our votes. Apparently some people interpreted this to mean that, as far as I am concerned, the only thing that matters is that some of my friends and colleagues from the Coast should get big jobs.
I want to explain therefore what my perspective is on the role of regional elites in the implementing of a development agenda. Let us first consider the period before Independence. Beginning in 1929, our future Founding President, Jomo Kenyatta, spent many years in England agitating for Kenyan Independence. He did not do so as an elected leader. Indeed, modern elections, whether regional or national, had never been held among Kenya’s African communities. It was a small group of farsighted people within Central Kenya who got together and raised the money that enabled Kenyatta to travel by ship to London to present a memorandum of complaints concerning the treatment of indigenous populations within Kenya and the loss of community lands to the White settlers.
We could actually argue that what Kenyatta did for his country before he was ever elected MP, a period of three decades, was among his greatest achievements and something for which he paid for very dearly indeed, losing his liberty for nine long years in the third decade of that struggle.
Likewise, on the shores of Lake Victoria, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga did not initially rise to prominence as an elected leader. Instead, in 1947, aged only 36, he founded the The Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation, and he and a few compatriots then proceeded to attempt something that had never been considered as practicable before or since. They set out to try and unite all the Luo people of East Africa.
This is not very well known nowadays, but this gigantic effort, right under the colonialist’s nose, was what earned Odinga the title of “Ker” among EA Luos. This title had not been used for four centuries – not since the legendary Ramogi Ajwang. Odinga became “The Jaramogi (the Man of the People of Ramogi).
Odinga was a classic example of a regional elitist, indeed of political royalty – from Alliance High School and Makerere University. He was to be elected later primarily because his agenda of economic empowerment was extremely popular with the Luo.
Long before both Jomo and the Jaramogi rose tom any prominence, the Giriama people of the Kenyan Coast had a woman leader by the name Mekatilili wa Menza. In 1914, when Kenyatta was aged only 24 and Odinga three years old, the British bombed the sacred forest called the Kaya Fungo, bringing closure to a fierce rebellion led by Mekatilili and her compatriots who were completely opposed to the colonial administration and policies.
Before the massive dynamiting of Kaya Fungo, Mekatilili was arrested and exiled to Mumias in the then Western Province. She died in 1914, the year Kaya Fungo was dynamited and World War I began.
Mekatilili lived and died at a time when political rights for Africans were almost inconceivable. She was not an elected leader, much less one seeking elective office, yet she led the fight for indigenous land rights to the point where she was detained as she was considered a threat to the colonial government’s policy of mass settlement of White farmers.
These three outstanding examples make it clear that while we must recognize the power and influence of elected leaders, we must also not underestimate the influence of regional elites in defending and agitating for the economic empowerment agenda of their regions.
After all, it is unreasonable to expect that the average peasant farmer in any corner of this country can wake up one fine morning and devise a comprehensive manifesto for his own economic liberation. This can only come from people who have had the benefit of advanced education; extensive foreign travel; notable achievements within their own professions; and many years of interaction with elites from other parts of the country.
Indeed, it is in recognition of this that the new constitution specifically requires that no department of the public sector should be dominated by people from any one region. On the contrary, every public institution, in appointing its top officials, must seek to reflect what is beautifully called “The Face of Kenya”.