We have sung anti-graft song for too long, we are tired of it

A few days ago, someone sent me a newspaper cutting dated Saturday, January 20, 1968. The headline read, “Government pledge to crush corruption.” It also had a tagline that read, “Vice President Moi asks Kenyans to hand in information.” That was 50 years ago, today – in point of fact slightly over. Then, as now, the government was vowing to fight corruption but doing nothing about it.

The 1968 report said that the Vice President was responding to concerns that had been raised in Parliament about corruption in government. It read in part, “Speaking on a motion of adjournment… he said it would be far better if individuals who had information on the subject passed it on to the government instead of going to the Press. The Vice President said that every individual had a right to report to the government cases in which ministers or high-ranking government officials took advantage of their positions to indulge in corrupt practices. Action would be taken, he said.”

Never mind the irony of reporting to the government about corruption in government. The primary thing is that Kenya has got it wrong from the very start. In the 1960s, the political class spoke of “the fruits of independence.” Afterwards, the imagery changed to “the national cake.” Today we talk of “half a loaf” and “full loaf.” From the very start, we have looked at our country and its resources in the imagery of eating.

Kenya is a stag that must be killed and eaten. Today, therefore, the national landscape is awash with one scandal after the other. Sometimes we have a cocktail of scandals, involving the same characters. There are dizzying narratives from the National Youth Service, the National Cereals and Produce Board, the Youth Fund, and God knows where else. In the 1960s, President Jomo Kenyatta used to talk of an elephant that he said he had slain. It was up to each one of us to sharpen his knife and hive off a piece. If you had no knife, or you did not know how to cut, that was your problem.

The national ethos has been wrong, right from the cradle. Ours is a congenital problem. Government is formed so that State officers can gobble the fat of the country. We talk of “inclusivity” as one of the things we must achieve. The fabled “handshake” of March 9 had this as one of its focal points. We have not been told inclusion in what. But we have seen the acidic response from a part of the Jubilee fraternity in government. “There will be no Nusu Mkate,” they have said angrily; meaning that if Raila Odinga thinks that they are going to make room for him and his cohort in government, he is daydreaming.

The message is simple and clear. Government is not about service. It is about good living. Good living itself means stealing and eating. As this hostile conversation goes on, Deputy President William Ruto has this week riled at what he has called “an incompetent individual who cannot win an election.” He says the “incompetent man” is “a dictator scheming for inclusion in government.” Ruto says that Raila wants the Constitution changed to create a position for him in the current government. This will not happen, he vows.

If government was about working and service, few would fight to go in. Conversely, few would lock others out. Since independence, government in Kenya has not been about service. It has simply and squarely been about looting and eating. The foremost reward of winning an election would seem to be the opportunity to steal. Power would also seem to allow the appointing authority to decide who else can steal. Hence, you appoint people into senior positions to steal, both for you and for themselves.

To ensure that the machinery of graft is efficient, the appointments have been primarily ethnic driven. If you make 10 appointments, only one or two will be outside the ethnic matrix of the appointing authority. In the circumstances, we have had in place not just a bandit economy but successive bandit governments. From the very start, the government has been meant and designed to be felonious. Those who don’t steal are the exception and they will not last long anyway.

Now President Uhuru is telling us that he, too, is tired of this state of affairs. He says it will no longer be business as usual. He has promised to crack the whip. And we are waiting to see. For, we have sung the anti-corruption song for far too long, we can only be tired of it. Going forward, therefore, the President must stop talking about this chocking corruption. He must act. Sitting pretty in Cabinet today, are people who have been adversely named in the NYS scandal. The President must distance himself from them by sacking them at once. If he cannot sack them, he must accept to be laughed at.

But laughing at a President who barks without biting is not enough. This corruption thing is not a laughing matter. If President Kenyatta cannot sack the thieves in his government, he must admit defeat and failure. In which case the done thing is for him to go home. He must resign and allow more competent people to take over. This rot is now everywhere. It is in all departments of the National Government and in County Government, too. It is in our schools and in places of worship. You find it in non-governmental organisations and in the private sector. This gremlin will eat up the country. It must be stopped today, now. If the assignment is too daunting for the President – if he cannot touch his cronies in the mix – he must accept incompetence and step down. It is the whip or resignation. Over to you, President Kenyatta.

-The writer is a public communications adviser. [email protected]