By Barrack Muluka

What do you tell your boss, Raila Odinga? This question has been asked of me several times these past three months. I consider it legitimate enquiry. As a political communications professional, what do I say to the Prime Minister as he seeks to become Kenya’s next president? Recall that I work for him as National Director for Communications in his campaign effort.

First, I have said to the boss and indeed to my colleagues in the campaign that we are on the right side of history. This alone is gratifying. I have also noted that while we expect to win the next General Election, we should distinguish between winning and being on the right side of history. They are not one and the same thing. You do not win an election because you are on the right side of history. Nor do you lose because you are on the wrong side. Quite often, those on the right side of things are in the minority.

Kenya stands at a precarious crossroads today. As we celebrate 49 years of Madaraka, it is difficult to tell where we are going. Things have never been more in doubt than they are today. We mark this Madaraka amidst the rise of disgruntled groups like the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), Mungiki and sundry militant formations.

The cost of living has gone through the roof. The middle class is shrinking as the capacity of the shilling to do anything for you is in free fall. Corruption is accepted as normal daily practice. It no longer shocks to learn of yet another multi-billion shillings scandal. It is normal. It is accepted.

But mortal danger lurks. On national days, such as Madaraka, Kenyans will hear of “the great achievements” we have made. They will hear of the economy and of education. They will be told of super highways, the infrastructure and of the communications sector.

Other grand achievements will be reeled off in commerce, trade and industry and in the agricultural and cooperative movement sectors. They will be told about water, irrigation, energy, the health sector and a cocktail of other achievements.

When you are Burji, Rendille or Turkana listening to all this on Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) radio, you cannot relate to what they are saying. You get the impression that they must be talking about a different country.

For none of the benefits of independence has ever come your way. You understand adversity. You know hunger, absence of medical services, insecurity, lack of education facilities – in a word, abjectness.

You feel the same when you are from the Mijikenda. But your situation is only worse. The Burji, Garba and dozens of other communities know that they are relatively deprived because they only hear on radio about the rest of Kenya. The Mijikenda live amidst deprivation. They have seen deprivation since 1895. They see it, smell it, live it. But they are not alone.

Disparate communities in Rift Valley have never understood the meaning of “the fruits of independence”. If independence was a promissory note for good life under self-determination, it has been returned with the words, “insufficient funds”.

This is what I tell the Prime Minister. I say that Kenya has steadily degenerated into a most unequal society over the past 50 years. If the colonial dispensation set the wheels of oppressive inequality running, successive independent regimes have accelerated the process.

We have meanwhile created whole communities that can only question what is in it for them. People like those who call themselves MRC have legitimate historical grievances. While they are wrong in the call for secession, their grievances cannot be wished away.

Those who are privileged to rule must understand that it is not about grabbing everything. This is what I say to my boss. It is not about trying to make your home province a super state within the bigger state called Kenya.

It is not about placing the economy and all sectors in the hands of a few of your tribesmen while excluding everybody else. It is not about dominating the rest of the people of Kenya. 

I say to the boss, Kenya will never be the same after this election. Either we take everybody along or prepare for an expanded minefield of MRCs everywhere in the country. There is pulsating tiredness with the status quo. People thought that the new Constitution would solve their problems, especially exclusion.

They had faith in devolution. But they see today that there are machinations to frustrate implementation of the Constitution. They see that devolution and redistribution of opportunities may be a pipe dream.

Make no mistake, I say, Kenya can no longer feed omnivorous appetites for political power, economic domination and ethnic hegemonies. Everybody who aspires to ascend to power must begin reckoning with these facts. If they do not, I say to the boss, there will be no country to rule. For you can only exclude and dominate people for some time.

But there eventually comes a time when people conclude that they have nothing to lose but their chains. That is why you have MRC and Mungiki. These people have genuine grievances that Government must begin to address today. But if this Government will get away with it, the next one will not. 

The writer is a publishing editor and National Director of Communications at Raila for President Secretariat