I was born during the rule of founding President Jomo Kenyatta. But I have been alert and conscious in witnessing the rules of Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, enough to make a sound judgement on each.
For the first time in my entire life, I feel the country is being run by incompetent comedians and jokers. It is as sad as it is scary. As little children growing up under Moi, we heard older relatives in support of the Second Liberation movement cheering on the freedom luminaries as the battle for greater democracy went on in the streets.
Well, the roads looked like cattle tracks, where they existed at all, and there was general despondency within the population about the state of the economy. But the overriding feeling was that Moi loved the country and genuinely wanted his legacy to be centred around lasting peace and unity.
Given his humble background and limited formal education, large parts of the country were even willing to forgive President Moi for the failings of his rule. You got the impression that silently we all convinced ourselves that management wasn’t Moi’s greatest strength.
Indeed, as soon as his Kanu protégé lost the general election in 2002, even the most rabid of Moi opponents asked that the old man be allowed to retire in peace. There was a consensus that in 2003, Kibaki inherited a dilapidated country in every sphere, but one in which the spirit of nationhood remained strong.
So strong that even what was seen in some quarters as a security apparatus overflowing with Moi’s tribesmen dutifully lined up behind the new commander in chief and ensured a smooth transition (a luxury that the new power men in Kibaki’s administration would abuse just five years later, plunging the country into unprecedented chaos). President Moi doesn’t get enough plaudits for this, but his handling of the 2002 transition remains the gold standard that none of his successors has ever come close to emulating.
The Kibaki years have been hailed as the period of economic bliss and infrastructural renaissance. You can’t begrudge the man this. There was also the wonder of free primary education, after a million pupils turned up at school gates in January 2003 seeking learning opportunities, a fact made possible largely because despite his weaknesses in economic management, the Moi years had seen an unprecedented expansion of schools’ infrastructure through harambees and state support.
But Kibaki allowed what looked distinctly like a return to the Jomo-era tribal supremacy of one ethnic community to entrench itself. It alienated the rest of the nation and history records we paid a heavy price for it during the post-election violence of 2007-08.
Incidentally, the purported attempt to make lasting peace between the two main warring communities from the 2008 PEV defined the next three elections and possibly set the stage for what today may be the worst rule in the country’s history. On the whole, however, Kibaki, like Moi, was an elder statesman who genuinely wanted things to work out.
When President Uhuru Kenyatta took over from Kibaki in 2013, it appeared the twin issues uniting him and his deputy were the PEV and the duo’s cases hanging at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The matter was allowed to become the government’s main preoccupation. But it was also used to create hate figures, chiefly ODM boss Raila Odinga, and to perpetuate tribally divisive politics.
By the time Uhuru, at the beginning of his second and final term, realised just how much poison he had helped distribute within Kenyan politics, it was too late to both heal the nation and help his preferred successor to take the reins of power.
And this is how we ended up with what seems to be this misfortune in theKenya Kwanza regime. If foot-in-mouth disease had a face, this would be it. This government can’t help itself. Initially, I assumed when the current Cabinet was unveiled that their biggest problem would be incompetence, so solid in the lineup that you could touch it.
However, after watching the regime farces daily, perhaps the biggest enemy of Kenya Kwanza is that they just can’t stop talking and start working. Very few people dig themselves into a hole then refuse to stop digging, like this government. At the time of writing this piece, DP Rigathi Gachagua had just unleashed the biggest summersault in recent times, after stating in Mombasa the government had released Sh10 billion in El Nino relief funds, only to declare barely 24 hours later, that there were no such funds!
What takes the cake in this fumble-fest is, however, the not-so-small issue of petroleum and its attendant rising price in the country. The government claims to have signed a state-level agreement with two Middle Eastern countries to supply petroleum products, purportedly to stabilise the oil market, address biting forex shortages and keeping prices low.
All indications are that it has achieved none of those objectives. Azimio leader Raila Odinga has so far released two statements within a week, calling the whole deal a scam. As if the bad news couldn’t end, a ship happened to dock at the port of Mombasa carrying Sh17 billion fuel, and a lady no one had previously heard of, popped up claiming it. Government officials declared her ownership documents forged. But everything remained hazy on where the oil came from and how it ended up in Mombasa.
You would expect a government already suffering such low credibility ratings to hasten to clear its name with regard to the whole oil crisis, especially after Uganda, Kenya’s biggest trading partner, criticised the government-to-government oil deal and opted for new ways to acquire its own oil. A casual glance shows Uganda’s departure, as well as that of other regional states, will end up costing Kenya nearly half of its market for oil imports, along with billions of shillings in revenue.
Those who speak for the regime have however remained stuck in the campaign-era rhetoric, with one of them using the predictable line, “Raila is only bitter because he and Uhuru have their own oil firms.”
I am sure the intelligence agencies have painted the true picture of the state of the nation to the President and top leaders of the government. In one word, that state is bad. It is not the sort of scenario for casual responses to emerging discussions around the cost of living and prices of essential goods. The price of fuel, unfortunately for the regime, is the fulcrum in these discussions.
I wonder who this government will listen to. It is already running thin on national goodwill. It would do well to deliver just one or a few good things to the people, real and genuine. To do that, it has to instil in the heads of the leaders that the campaign period, in which they had the leeway to make outrageous claims and promises, has ended.
Let its officers walk away from public rallies and go into their offices to work! And while they’re at it, for goodness sake, avoid promising more rosy things that won’t come to fruition, the people already know how to identify the lies!
The writer is a political commentator