Am I being obsessed with ethnicity?

My former student, insurance broker and friend Kabage Karanja, in an article published in The Standard on June 15 (Monday) this week reacted to my OpEd article in the Sunday Standard a week ago.

He accused me of being obsessed with ethnicity and only focusing on the ethnic identity of Patrick Njoroge when he was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.

Then Magesha Ngwiri (Saturday Nation), using a very similar argument, also denounced my article without naming me directly. I salute both contributions since they help us understand even more deeply the extent of denial by the elite of the problem of ethnicity in constructing our nation.

Burying our heads in the sand and wishing away the problem like the proverbial ostrich will not help us: it will only postpone the day of recognising the importance of TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION in dealing with this problem in our history and in our attempt to create equity and inclusivity in our nation as stipulated in the Constitution.

Before I delve further into Kabage's contribution, let me remind him-and many like him-of the importance of Article 10 of the Constitution: an issue that both him and Mr Ngwiri conveniently ignored. Let me further draw his attention to the following principle laid down in the Constitution in the matter of appointments to public institutions.

Article 232 says the values and principles of public service include fair competition and merit as the basis of appointments and promotions; representation of Kenya's diverse communities; and affording adequate and equal opportunities for appointment, training and advancement, at all levels of the public service, of- men and women; THE MEMBERS OF ALL ETHNIC GROUPS; and persons with disabilities.

Parliament has, however, let the Kenyan people down, for we are required, by sub-article (3), to "enact legislation to give full effect to this Article". We have not done so.

It is precisely because we as Parliament have not given proper legal guidelines regarding how we shall ensure that we have INCLUSIVITY (ethnic, gender, region and marginality) in public appointments that I thought it fit to raise this issue with regard to the Central Bank so that we discontinue past practices of exclusion by the previous authoritarian regimes.

I wonder whether both Mr Ngwiri and Mr Kabage really think that it is fair and inclusive for an important institution like the Central Bank to be controlled by individuals from one ethnic community for 29 out of the 49 years of its existence.

The Constitution recognises merit and professional qualifications relevant to a particular post as important in making a choice to fill that post. But the Constitution also recognises other equally important considerations pointed out above, ethnicity being one of them.

In simple English, what the Constitution is saying is the following: NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that we need to take into account an applicant's qualifications, there are equally important factors that we need to consider in making such decisions.

When ignored, and our decisions are biased always towards qualifications, we risk INSTITUTIONALISING exclusivity in our public service.

My data shows that since independence, this is what has happened in the choice of the governorship of the Central Bank. As a social scientist, I make my conclusions based on objective observation not subjective preference. But much more specifically: is it really true that Dr Njoroge was the only qualified person in Kenya today who could fill that position, especially if we are concerned about implementing our Constitution?

Am I obsessed with ethnicity if I ask this very genuine, relevant and objective question? I just need a simple answer. Calling me names and cleverly seeking to profile me as "anti-Kikuyu" will not help. In any case, my article in no way seeks to ignite hatred against the Kikuyu.

On the contrary, it seeks to open the eyes of people like Kabage who refuse to recognise ethnic exclusion as problematic in our nation-building project and needs to be confronted as such.

Our Constitution lays a good foundation for such an endeavour. Kabage Karanja went further to show how the Federal Reserve Bank in the USA has for many years been run by qualified Jews. And they have done a good job, according to him. I will not bother with that conclusion for the moment.

Suffice it to say, however, that it is that Kabage-type of reading of history that breeds neo-fascism than my confronting ethnicity as a problem to be dealt with contextually. In any case, the USA is not a very good example of how to deal with issues of INCLUSIVITY or good ethnic and race relations. In our context, Singapore, Malaysia and Belgium are much better examples.

They had ethnicity as the elephant in the room in their early periods of nation- building. They socially engineered programmes of ethnic INCLUSIVITY from which we need to learn since we may easily continue to institutionalise ethnic privileges under the guise of respecting "pure merit" in our public institutions.

Addressing historical injustices is always a painful exercise for the socially privileged: we should have no illusions about this.

And I alluded to this in my article: but my two colleagues had a prior construct in their brains which limited their ability to read and understand my article fully. Another look at that article with a much more open mind may advance this discourse in a progressive manner.