Let’s not change laws to suit individuals

This week, it emerged that some politicians are proposing amendments to the Constitution to accommodate their hypothesized ethnic alliances. One of the proposals involves creation of a hybrid system of government out of the current one, with a strong President and a Prime Minister answerable to the President.

The plan also envisages a return of legislators to the Cabinet as ministers appointed by the President. In a sense, those floating the plan are re-litigating the discussions that preceded the 2010 adoption of the new katiba.

The existence of this plan betrays the intellectual bankruptcy of the Kenyan political class. We are in the middle of a drought that is about to degenerate into a full-blown famine. Doctors have been on strike for over two months. Our education system needs a radical restructuring. Our farmers are not as productive as they could be. And crime and insecurity is rampant in urban centres and rural areas.

The regular mwananchi with a job is at once over-taxed and under-served by the state. Yet the most our leaders can come up with, in an election year no less, is yet another plan to share power; and with that access to our hard-earned tax shillings. Do we have no shame?

The utter contempt for the Kenyan taxpayer is evident in the deafening silence among the political class that greeted news reports that a small group of government officials will receive billions of shillings in salary increases.

What is most saddening about the latest attempts to rewrite the Constitution is that it is championed by a set of politicians who not long ago had styled themselves as defenders of devolution. Yet their proposed solution to failures of the katiba is to empower the national government even further. The creation of the office of the Prime Minister will suck vital energies away from the counties. It will serve to re-centralise our political orientation at a time when we should be thinking of ways to strengthen county governments as agents of development.

Let us be clear. We should not amend the Constitution to accommodate ethnic chiefs. If they cannot win elections within the current constitutional dispensation, they should quit politics and apply themselves to other endeavours. Kenyans are tired of leaders who use their supporters merely as means to an end. We are all individuals, worthy of being treated with respect, and worthy of a government that prioritises our most urgent needs. And right now, the most urgent need in the Jamuhuri is not for the position of a Prime Minister.

The most urgent need is for a county system of government that works. That is an agent of grassroots of development through the rationalisation of our agricultural sector and rapid urbanisation. That is focused on job creation, especially the kinds of jobs that make use of our low-skilled citizens.

We missed the boat on the creation of ethnically inclusive national government. We must accept that fact. And in the absence of an inclusive national government, the second-best solution is to empower the counties – with more revenues and mandates.

Yes, there will be a short-term cost to this approach, especially due to capacity gaps. But that is where intra-ethnic politics should come in. We must trust Kenyans to be able to hold their co-ethnic leaders accountable. And we must trust that in the long run Kenyans will learn from the county experiences, and translate this into a more accountable and inclusive form of government at the national level.

Some may argue that we need a cohesive national government to create a sense of national unity. I say that you cannot eat national unity. What we need are functional governments first; and then an appreciation for these governments, and a sense of national unity, will follow thereafter. If we cannot get a competent and inclusive national government, we should shrink its size, and empower the counties.