Graft: Governors should not be allowed to have their way

Conscience hardly counts for much in our governance model. Its near-absence might have motivated drafters of the 2010 Constitution to cobble Chapter Six on leadership and integrity. Still, it might as well not exist, if the disdain elected leaders have for it is an indicator.

Claims, counterclaims, actions and pronouncements that depict most of our leaders as rogue dominate media spaces day in, day out. One moment there are claims that certain individuals are conspiring to assassinate Deputy President William Ruto. The next there are physical fights in Parliament.

MPs threaten to punch others on the floor of the House; undiplomatic language is used against opponents in public rallies. Some legislators rile at Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i, ostensibly because he does not pay obeisance to the DP. To cap it all, Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua now claims Dr Ruto is out to ‘finish’ him. In between, corruption thrives while the Kieleweke- Tangatanga gang wars escalate.

Almost unnoticed, seeds of political violence that explode every five-year electoral cycle, mostly in the expansive Rift Valley, have been planted in Central Kenya and are blossoming as belligerent Jubilee party factions jostle for ascendancy in the region.

Kieleweke and Tangatanga wars are an exemplification of the Sicilian Mafioso wars of the 1960s through to the 1980s. The mafia-style fights that co-opt unemployed youth in Central are aimed at forcefully shifting the power balance within Jubilee in the countdown to 2022 when President Uhuru Kenyatta will hang his boots.

Judiciary officials

The most probable outcome of such machinations is that Jubilee will start feeding on itself as insiders who feel edged out turn around to fight the system. It is from such disgruntlement that assassination plots are mooted.

Unfortunately, the targets are not just politicians. Judiciary officials, activists and religious leaders have, in some countries, been exterminated for merely expressing sympathy for one side of the political divide.

Even now, our Judiciary is not standing on firm ground, not just because it has been denied adequate funding, but also because senior judicial officers feel they are targets of State operatives pushing clandestine agendas. Our political leadership has clearly spun out of control and, make no mistake, not much will be accomplished before the next elections. In particular, the Big Four Agenda is unlikely to be actualised.

On housing, the government recently ate humble pie and discarded the idea of compulsory contributions by workers and employers after facing opposition. Though noble, we all know the government has no spare funds to sink into the project.

With too many strikes by medics, Universal Health Care (UHC) will remain a mirage. Kisumu, one of the four counties chosen to pilot UHC and act as a model, is a disgrace due to endless strikes by nurses, doctors and clinical officers. The speeds at which factories and industries are closing shop are a guarantee that manufacturing won’t get off the paper stage.

Documentary evidence

We cannot open the floodgates of cheap imports and expect to grow local manufacturing. We cannot even begin to talk about food security with erratic weather patterns that impact our rain-driven agriculture negatively, cartels, high cost of agricultural inputs and poor prices for farm produce. Despite positive talk from the government, don’t be deluded; it is not in it for the long haul.

And just when sceptical Kenyans had begun to believe there is political goodwill to fight corruption, the Council of Governors is seeking an advisory opinion and intends to challenge a High Court ruling that bars governors arraigned for corruption from accessing their offices and executing their duties.

Such intent depicts governors as the enemies in the fight against corruption. It doesn’t require more than common sense to appreciate the logic in the court’s ruling which, in any case, resonates well with the ideals of Chapter Six of the Constitution, and what anybody with a conscience would do.

The mess in Nairobi is not a plausible excuse for governors to seek to create a special class of citizens who, though arraigned on criminal activities, should be allowed to continue working in offices where they could interfere with documentary evidence and intimidate witnesses in a bid to stymie cases against them. Because governors are not infallible and fate is not a confider in mankind, there is need to work with the worst case scenario while seeking political solutions.

Governors should stop believing they are the glue that holds individual counties together because they are dispensable whenever circumstances dictate. The lacuna in law that allowed Governor Mike Sonko to land Nairobi in the morass it finds itself today must be plugged.

It is the greatest failing of the Constitution when an individual can ‘legally’ hold a whole county to ransom without consequences. The concept of running mates is a recipe for disaster.

Mr Chagema is a correspondent for The [email protected]