We quite enjoyed the famous “Fergie time”, when passionate United players turned up for the badge in the dying minutes of games, sometimes scoring with literally the last kick of the ball. Don’t try asking conspiracy theorists about Fergie Time, because they claim, rather unfairly, that this was illegal time added by referees bending to the whims of the powerful Sir Alex, whenever United were trailing or drawing, and needed a goal at all costs!
In recent times, Man United has become a pale shadow of its former self. This season especially, it has been totally dominated by opposing teams, and fans watching do not feel confident the team can retain a lead. It is hard to attribute the decline to one specific factor. Depending on who you ask, these may range from poor transfer business, insensitive owners, poor coaching to lack of passion by players. From where I sit, it all boils down to incompetence.
The Kenya Kwanza regime’s continuous fumbling with national issues reminds me of the on-pitch struggles of my favourite team. Not that you can find a glorious past in Ruto’s government to mirror United’s, but the incompetence and goofing are quite similar.
As a descendant of a lakeside community, I am beholden to the philosophy that fish rots from the head, so an incompetent, insensitive government’s core weakness lies in “poor coaching” and the buck stops with the manager.
I don’t know where to begin, but let’s start with the fake fertiliser scandal. I know how government works, enough to be confident that there must be a National Intelligence Service situation report, what they call “Sitrep” in their lingo, lying somewhere on a powerful desk, complete with names and complicity details, over the fake fertiliser scandal.
There is hardly any illusion that an individual or group of people can package stones and donkey waste on a large scale, and sell it to unsuspecting citizens, without the security apparatus knowing about it.
The mere fact that deep into the life of the scandal, top government honchos can only issue threats, yet no arrests have been made, is a reminder that this type of scandal is usually the work of well-connected people whose arrest and prosecution remain a mirage.
Interestingly, in Kenya’s famed agricultural economy, the most critical agricultural bases are the Rift Valley and the Mt Kenya region, which also happen to be the two largest shareholders in the regime. The fake fertiliser scandal, for all intents and purposes, is one that stabs directly at the heart of the regime’s own base.
Away from fake fertiliser, the focus has also been on the ongoing doctors' strike. Even before this, Kenya’s chaotic and corrupt health sector has been on its sickbed. But in terms of management, the leadership of CS Susan Nakhumicha has been the most uninspiring in recent memory. I honestly do not believe the CS possesses the tools and the wherewithal to run a ministry as sensitive and as critical as Health.
In fact, I hope that President Ruto was shown the clip of Kieni MP Njoroge Wainaina, who over the weekend loudly wondered if Nakhumicha would be capable of navigating through a situation similar to the Covid pandemic, which hit the country hard in 2020, and pushed then Health CS Mutahi Kagwe into a celebrity of sorts, following his brilliant handling of all the intricacies that accompanied the pandemic.
The MP then proceeded to advise the President to move the CS to a less hectic ministry. I wondered what ministry or state department would qualify as “easier” than health. Nakhumicha’s poor handling of the doctor’s strike, and manifest demonstration of incompetence, wouldn’t in ordinary circumstances warrant a transfer to another department, but there is an almost-universal acceptance, as pointed out earlier, that since fish rots from the head, incompetence at the middle or lower levels is a factor of incompetence at the top.
My observation is that Ruto is not interested in a competent, talented team. It surprises me, largely because since he is heading towards midway through his term, any political expediencies attendant to appointments he made at the beginning of his term should now retire, to be replaced with realities of reelection demands.
There is simply no reason he needs in his government baggage that complicates his 2027 plans. Well, the media is awash with stories of pending Cabinet reshuffles, but I am sure those are planted stories meant to buy time.
There is yet another angle to this. In Kenyan psyche, there is a belief that as the population grapples with a high cost of living, freshly minted power brokers are minting millions, either from fraudulent deals like the fake fertiliser, or from the good old government procurement system.
Kenyans on social media have become adept at zooming in on the attire donned by some of these leaders, and subsequently going online to find out the retail prices of these items. Essentially, the “discovery” has been that these regime “shareholders” are waltzing around with shoes, belts and sunglasses whose value would translate to several acres of land in prime neighbourhoods.
It is one thing to run an incompetent enterprise. But when the universal view is that the incompetence is enriching many, the whole spectacle moves to the insensitive. Every run-of-the-mill philosopher and historian likes to quote the infamous words allegedly uttered by Maria Antoinette, the last queen of France, before the French Revolution began in 1789; “Let them eat cake”. The words are representative of regimes garbed in lavish spending and opulent lifestyles as the poor populations, already burdened by back-breaking taxes, have to struggle to fend for themselves.
Despite what they may say in public, I don’t think there is anyone in government who thinks everything is going well and the people are happy. What I wonder though is if the President and his surrogates see the daily headlines detailing such unsettling stories like expensive renovations at State House, runaway borrowing without consequent development projects to go with it or even the daily rantings of citizens over one bread and butter issue or another.
Well, they don’t really have to read it in the papers since they preside over these acts in the first place, but certainly, the President as head of government must be aware that each new scandal reflects specifically on him as the head of the fish. I struggle to see what political risks are there for him in sending home most of, if not the entire, Cabinet.
But before that, he probably needs a retreat at which he informs his government officials, especially those from his own Rift Valley backyard, that to paint a consistent picture of incompetence, while also flaunting newfound wealth at the faces of wananchi, is Maria Antoinette-level naive! The million-shilling watches and sunglasses can surely stay home in the safes when they step out into the public to meet wananchi, who can’t find cake to eat!
