Why Kenyans will be region's refugees, beggars in times ahead

I am filing this piece from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. It is the day President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Madaraka train, back home. My driver in Dar went on and on about my country’s forthcoming elections. And he is not alone. People around here are concerned about my country. There is fear that Kenyans are about to steal elections – or imagine that elections have been stolen – and fight and fight over them. At the University of Dar-es-Salaam, someone told me lightheartedly, but with meaning all the same, “Here in Tanzania, we know that Kenyans are thieves. They steal everything and anything – from land to public toilets and elections.”

It is quite some reputation we have. I am reminded that the Majority Leader in the National Assembly has said the Opposition has set up “a rigging station” in Tanzania. Conversely, the Opposition has itself been running with the rigging script for four years. And they have pledged “not to go to court if the election is stolen again.” While we think we are sitting pretty, bandying about strange electoral statistics, the world is concerned about our boiling pot. And so I have to take caustic lectures from foreign cab drivers, on behalf of my country. Somewhere along the line, I put in my limited expertise in Kiswahili proverbs, “Adhabu ya kaburi aijuwaye maiti,” I said. Which means only the dead appreciate the sufferings in the grave.

What do these Tanzanians know about political economies of segmented exclusion? Aren’t they lucky that they started off with a philosopher-king for president in 1960? When leaving power in 1985, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere apologised to his people for imaginary failure. Of course his brand of socialism – Ujamaa – did not deliver the economic miracles he dreamt about. That was why Mwalimu told his people, “Fellow Tanzanians, forgive me for letting you down. Our Ujamaa has failed. I meant well, but it has not worked. I ask you to forgive me. I will step down to allow someone else to try something different.”

Nyerere was a modest man. He was a humble leader all the way to the grave. He moulded a solid Tanzanian nation and mind where our Jomo Kenyatta moulded dithering tribal nations and minds. Nyerere imbued his people with a sense of national pride. Kenyatta imbued his with tribal hate. In their poverty of yesteryear, Tanzanians embraced humanism. Their “rich” neighbours to the north embraced hyenaism. Tanzania’s humanism tells you, “Ndugu, let us pull together in one direction. Kenya’s hyenaism says, “We are eating meat as you stare at us and slobber.” Accordingly, in Tanzania elections are forums in which ideas compete. In Kenya, elections are forums for tribes to compete. Once pitied as East Africa’s most backward economy, the macro indicators show Tanzania is catching up. Perhaps it has sallied ahead. Dar-es-Salaam has come a long way from the poverty-ridden laid back slum that I visited in 1986, a few months after Mwalimu stepped down. Let Kenyans continue their puerile games of meat eating and mouth slobbering. They will be East Africa’s refugees and beggars in times ahead. A broadcast journalist called me today. She wanted to know what I make of the opposition’s beef with President Kenyatta for “launching the Madaraka train” in this election campaign season. “What is wrong with launching the train at this time?” I asked her. I have often marveled at our Opposition’s adeptness at missing the big picture. They are the proverbial men who speed after rats fleeing from a house on fire.

Passenger thing

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) presents bigger challenges than the launch date. And if President Kenyatta wants to flaunt around this toy, there is no good reason to deny him the joy of his toy. Indeed, as a project, it was a good idea. There is no need to keep on bashing it as “a grandiose project” and all that. In a gone age, the Opposition was always bashing President Moi for building the airport in Eldoret and revamping the Mombasa airport. Now you meet the same people on the plane allover the place.

Apart from the passenger thing, however, what have we done with our airports? Airports, airlines, railways and trains can never thrive on passengers. Why have we failed to see that this is largely the problem with Kenya Airways, for example? While other airlines thrive on cargo, KQ is focused on passengers, with cargo only as a footnote.

When will we wake up to the reality that Kenya Railways atrophied because the political class killed its cargo lines? Of course they went on to loot it before bringing up Rift Valley Railways (RVR). Soon RVR will be gone. But the loans that they took from the World Bank for the political class to steal will remain. Kenyans will pay. This is what the Opposition should be talking about.

What does President Kenyatta intend to do with the SGR? Serious conflict of interest has been alleged. We have heard about the inflated costs, old engines and coaches, dry inland port interests on the part of people in government and the lot. In the end, this SGR could be just another cash kiting project. Where is the economy around the SGR?

Finally, I have been asked about the latest opinion polls. This is political mumbo jumbo. It should be ignored with the contempt that it deserves. For the claims in the polls do not sit happily together. Seventy per cent of Kenyans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet nearly 50 per cent will vote for the person driving Kenya in that wrong direction. Between Kenyans and the pollsters, someone is operating on icy porridge in the head.

The writer is a publishing editor, consultant and advisor on public and media relations.

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