Antony Otieno Ong'ayo
3 July 2009
(Page 4 of 4)
The third point is that it is only through the establishment of a system which provides for equity in the distribution of national resources and development opportunities; for institutional effectiveness, efficiency, and insulation from the executive and foolproof accountability; that will respect and guarantee the democratic rights of all Kenyans in their choice of leadership at all times and that is all-inclusive and addresses the diverse nature of the Kenyan polity - one in which the citizens will not mind who is in power, but are still guaranteed of service delivery regardless of their ethnic background - that past injustices can be remedied and the country kept together. Anything short of this will push Kenya closer to the edge of the cliff. Ordinary Kenyans have very painful experiences with bad leadership, political betrayal, political corruption, dictatorships and violence that transcend all areas of their lives. They experience these in their homes, in the hands of the state, through corporal punishment in schools and harrowing experiences in the hands of criminals.
The fourth and most important point is that the government of the day should start addressing the potential of all regions by focusing on how to exploit such potential. Dry regions in Kenya can still have water if there is the political will. There is water in Lake Victoria which can reach North Kenya, to the Samburu, Turkana, Somali and Ukambani regions where drought and hunger are part and parcel of life despite 46 years of Kenya's independence. These people cannot live in such a condition any longer; they are more aware of the inequalities in Kenya and what causes them through the media and increased mobility, therefore any lies to the contrary will not hold any more than handouts and relief food during electioneering periods will. Their level of consciousness is not the same as in the 1960s and in the 1970s or during the Moi dictatorship in the 1980s when they could not make their voices heard. Furthermore, there is no justification for an oil pipeline from Mombasa to Western Kenya and not one for water the other way round. The question of cost cannot be an excuse here because it is the life and well being of millions of Kenyans that is at stake. Therefore any investment to secure livelihoods is justified beyond economic reasoning.
Some of these projects could even be the breakthrough points for Kenya's proper economic growth and wishes to realise the millennium development goals (MDGs) in the long term. Nyanza has great potential to provide Kenya with sugar, alcohol energy, fish for domestic consumption and export, cotton for the textile industry and horticulture. Eastern Province can become a second breadbasket for Kenya with its fruits, horticulture and mining while also providing exports. Northern Kenya has the potential for cement production, mineral exploration and as a transport corridor to Central and Northern Africa, connecting them with the Indian Ocean. The pastoral communities in Northern Kenya could be another source of domestic, regional and international meat and sufficient leather for foreign exchange and the transformation of lives in those communities, if there was the political will. Central Province and Rift Valley could still play major roles by focusing on cash crops from those regions, while also serving domestic needs, but even more so if they were supported with funding to modernise their production and processing of these products in order to fetch good prices on the international market. Such initiatives will create jobs and secure livelihoods, thus reducing the conflict that is often exacerbated by struggle and competition for scarce land and other resources in those regions and the impact of climate change affecting food production in many parts of Kenya today.
Finally it should be emphasised that to continue ignoring these concerns would not auger well for the stability of the nation. Power struggles that have been there since the first republic are increasingly becoming transformational in character, and the ethnic card has been one of the main tools of trade. However, the class issue must also be incorporated into the analysis in order to understand the extent of the rot in governance in Kenya. After 46 years and quite an advanced level of education and literacy in Kenya, one would expect the political elite not to fail to address the major issues affecting their communities and society in general.
The recent power-sharing arrangement and current coalition government being tried are not long-lasting solutions. Their usefulness in the Kenyan context is almost over since the nature of Kenyan political practice lacks the decorum and principles that could build on such mechanisms to address pressing leadership crises, nation-building and cohesion. The Kenyan political elite is very much focused on capital accumulation at any cost and by all means necessary, hence the ineptitude and laziness. In most cases, it seems like a conscious decision not to upset the status quo or attempt to address the fundamental institutional and constitutional issues which could pave the path for a progressive society, and for posterity. The wrangles in the coalition are examples of the failure of the Kenyan elite to think long-term and to moderate their appetite for wealth. For this reason, the responsibility lies with the Kenyan masses to wake up and take charge of their destiny.
However, the major obstacle to any major change from below is the fact that the collusion of the Kenyan ruling elite and their insatiable appetite for quick wealth will keep obstructing any attempt by the ordinary citizenship to effect change in Kenya. The local elite, which is not only confined to politicians but also includes elite civil society representatives and the so-called Kenyan middle-class, is also a major stumbling block, especially when one may begin to ask for a new crop of leaders to emerge and fill the gaps left by the past and current letdowns. The development partners may support civil society activities to influence the reform agenda, but this is also a symbiotic relationship whose outcome always maintains the status quo even if there are sometimes significant incremental gains, such as an expansion of the space for alternative voices. Kenya's strategic geopolitical position might sometimes be its undoing, since external interests may opt for the current order over upsetting the status quo which serves many interests in Kenya and in the region.
However there is still some hope, but in my view a much more painful experience is what might lead to a change of hearts and minds and force Kenyans to have paradigm shift on how they relate with each other. Nothing else except for something dramatic and much more painful and hard-hitting on the elite and middle-class in Kenya will force them to change their behaviour, since everything has gone back to business-as-usual even after what happened during the post-election violence. The victims of the post-election violence were ordinary Kenyans and not the elite, hence the reluctance to change. Violence in Nairobi was largely confined to the suburbs, leaving the elite neighbourhoods untouched, including the extravagant lifestyle in the posh modern malls within their exclusive and high-walled residential areas. I say this because if the violence had had any impact, or if the elite had been starved of their daily extravagance and their children deprived of milk supplies, among other things, then the political elite would have changed tack for the sake of their wealth and there would be no IDPs (internally displaced persons) still in camps and a blueprint for equal distribution of resources would have been made and implemented, even if in phases, and a speedy, genuine truth and reconciliation process would have been instituted. Kenyans would have changed their language to something different from what is currently found on various blogs and news commentaries in the three Kenyan dailies, where the rhetoric is not that different from the referendum period in 2005 or prior to the 2007 general elections. You can only imagine what might happen in 2012 if agenda four is not implemented and business-as-usual is not brought to a halt.
Antony Otieno Ong'ayo is a researcher at the African Diaspora Policy Centre and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.
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