Mr President, keep “Yes men” out of your advisors

By Ken Opalo

According to Deputy President William Ruto, there are people within State House who have been giving President Uhuru Kenyatta bad legal advice on presidential appointments. This damning admission by a government official as senior as the Deputy President raises serious questions about the qualifications of senior staff within State House. Who has the president’s ear on security, or economic affairs, or jobs? What is the main determinant of who gets appointed to senior state jobs?

As I have pointed out on numerous occasions on this column, governing a country as big and complex as Kenya is hard. Therefore trying to do so jua kali is a sure guarantee of failure. The rookie mistakes that the President has made in the last few weeks on appointments betray the fact that State House is still in jua kali mode — that appointments to senior positions are not done on merit but purely as a way of rewarding cronies. In another setting the admission by Ruto would have led to the rolling of heads.

But not in Kenya; here when people make mistakes they give half-hearted apologies (if at all they get caught) and then continue to sit pretty in their offices like nothing happened. State jobs are total sinecures.

In his capacity as the chief executive of Kenya Inc., the President’s success will primarily be determined by the caliber of advisors he has. He cannot possibly attend to every minute issue affecting the country in person. Sometimes he has to delegate to senior staff at State House and in government agencies and parastatals. This is why it is important to appoint qualified and dedicated individuals to these senior government positions, not hangers-on who are there purely for private gain at the expense of the public.

Of course the President has to give something back to those who supported his campaign. Realpolitik demands that. Students of politics would also appreciate the need for the President to reach out to regions that did not vote for him with patronage-based appointments to public offices. This is what any reasonable incumbent with an eye on re-election would do. That said, the President could have attended to his political needs in a smarter way.

The best way to reward political cronies is not to make them your advisors or subordinate staff but to give them opportunities to do business. This is because cronies make the worst “yes men.” The President needs not “yes men” as advisors but clear-eyed professional public servants who will tell him like it is, and who will obey the law.

As a country, we need to develop a political culture that values professional advice and dedication to public service. Politicians, starting with the President and his deputy, ought to realise the best reward for cronies should be in opportunities for big business that will create jobs for wananchi and not in sinecures in the public service that will lead to bad policy choices and the continued enslavement of our people to abject poverty and want.

As I keep saying, there are no good or bad politicians. The extent to which politicians are good or bad is determined by the constraints they face while in office. President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto came into office with the promise of professionalism. They promised us a break from the past where the public service was defined by the absolute triumph of absolute mediocrity. This is the metric by which we ought to judge them. Unfortunately with every public appointment, or homecoming party, or scandal that emerges, the evidence is slowly building up that things have not changed.

But things need to change, fast.

I for one still believe that the president and his deputy can change Kenya. Kenyatta is among only a few Kenyans – including the Odingas and Mois – whose persons naturally evoke feelings of followership among a big proportion of Kenyans. Mr Ruto is a straight-shooting politician whose public oratory skills are unmatched by any politician of his generation. These two men do not need the hangers on and yes men who are threatening to derail their administration. If they want to they can mobilise a good chunk of the country and implement popular reforms that will set the country on the path to greater political stability and economic prosperity. Their choice to continue playing in the little league of “watu wetu” politics and disdain for professionalism is as baffling as it is catastrophic for our country’s future.