Politics is a dirty game, or so the saying goes. And in Kenya, it is undeniable that the political arena is largely peopled by less than savoury characters.
The very term “politics” often leaves a foul taste in the mouth – few, for instance, would deem it a good thing to “play politics” with an issue. On the political stage, the rules of logic and decent human behaviour and interaction are often suspended and pretty much anything goes. I will never forget once when debating an MP on TV, he threatened to respond to my arguments “politically”, implying he would no longer be confined to reason and logic.
In the course of a two-decade long career wading in this muck, President Uhuru Kenyatta has proven himself an adept politician – at home speaking from both sides of his mouth, presiding over the looting of the state and the brutalising of Kenyans, and destroying both local and international institutions.
The latest example of his political acumen has come in the course of the last month, following the release of the Pandora Papers. This was an investigation by more than 600 journalists and media organisations around the world into a leak of almost 12 million documents that revealed hidden wealth, tax avoidance and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world's rich and powerful.
Kenyatta’s family was among those mentioned.
Responding “politically” to revelations of his family’s use of dummy corporations and briefcase foundations to squirrel money abroad and hide income as well as ownership of properties, Kenyatta promised to “respond comprehensively on [his] return from [his] official visit to the Americas”.
Well, he has been back for two weeks and neither hide nor hair of his promised response has been sighted.
In his statement on the Pandora Papers, the President had opined that such revelations would “go a long way in enhancing the financial transparency and openness that we require in Kenya and around the globe”.
He also acknowledged that “the movement of illicit funds, proceeds of crime and corruption thrive in an environment of secrecy and darkness”. However in his Mashujaa Day speech, delivered days after his return, the President relaxed stringent anti-money laundering financial reporting rules that required bank customers to explain the source or use of cash transactions above Sh1 million. Coupled with the attempt by Parliament, which Jubilee Party controls, to block transparency rules and limits on campaign financing limit, this potentially opens the door for dirty money to flood into and influence next year’s general election.
Such doublespeak is of course not new. Few will have forgotten his promise, delivered live on air in December 2018, to release the contract for the building of the phenomenally expensive white elephant that is the SGR.
The “political” nature of that response was revealed four months later when the President’s chief of staff, Nzioka Waita, essentially said his boss had been intimidated into writing cheques he could not cash by “an unnecessary level of aggression” from journalist Mark Masai, who was demanding clarity on the contract.
In fact, pretty much everything the President has campaigned on or promised has turned out to be a lie.
From the laptops pledge in 2013 to lifestyle audits for politicians, to jobs for the people, his word has proven to about as good at holding water as a sieve. In this, however, Uhuru is proving to be the rule, and treading the path the colonials and his predecessors, including his father, have trodden.
Following his first inauguration in 2013, I wrote that to successfully achieve any of the “transformation” of Kenyan politics and society that he had promised, Uhuru would have “to confront the very system that has put him where he is. He … would need to confront and expose painful realities about the conduct of his family and its old friends”.
Today, it is clear that he has proven incapable of freeing himself from the shackles that bind him to the past. This will be his legacy after he leaves office next year: That he proved to be little more than just another Kenyan politician.
