Leaders suffer from insanity of doing same thing repeatedly expecting different results

By Kenneth Kwama

In The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power, former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen argues power has an intoxicating effect on many politicians at the top.

To paraphrase the acclaimed political author, such politicians become hubristic, arrogant, pompous, overbearing, supercilious, overconfident and isolated, and live in their own make-believe reality.

Focusing on former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Owen argues the two, in their hubristic incompetence, manipulated intelligence and sought to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while completely oblivious of the need for an exit strategy or a post-Saddam Iraqi.

Lord Owen’s theory could have been illustrated with far removed examples, but you don’t need to look hard to realise the hubris syndrome is very much evident in Kenya. We saw it early this week when our leaders brazenly ignored the prevailing socio-economic situation to stage ‘The Kenya We Want’ concert.

As much as I would like to be optimistic about the ‘talk shop’, I’m being persuaded experience not to be hopeful. Would it herald a new era of less tribalism and corruption and a more committed, responsive approach to governance? So, instead of the model society they are discussing, we are likely to end up with a scandal, perhaps of suppliers who were paid millions of shillings to supply drinks to the conference attendants, but failed. They will then appoint a commission of inquiry to probe the matter and hide the findings from us.

Power corrupts

Former President Moi told the gathering that a similar conference was held 40 years ago. Billions of shillings have been spent on poverty programmes, yet poverty persists.

I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by a political class of marauders. Even the most honest and well-intentioned politicians have disappeared among these pretenders. A scientist, whose name escapes my memory, once defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Perhaps the question is: Why do our politicians become so appealing once they are out of office?

I believe President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga are victims of what British historian Lord Acton once referred to as the ability of absolute power to corrupt absolutely. In other words, a person’s moral compass goes bonkers when his/her power increases. The common denominator among the people we depend on to make decisions for us is intoxication with power.

As a result, they have become disdainful of those who disagree with them and are no longer accountable to the law or the democratic process.

—Kwama is a senior writer with The Standard: kenkwama@eastandard.net