Lack of public morality means graft will get worse

How does one begin to steal money meant for pregnant women, children and HIV control? This is the question that has been on my mind over the last few days. From the outset, it seems like only a pathological thief with incorrigible sadism would dare rob the most vulnerable and needy among us. But look closer and you will see that the Kenyan system is intended to systematically shield such thieves from moral and legal costs of their actions.

Back in 1975, Peter Ekeh, a Nigerian sociologist, wrote an important paper on colonialism and its effects on civic culture. While Ekeh’s paper was mainly about Nigeria, it is widely applicable in most other post-colonial settings. The basic argument in the paper was that colonialism – in legal and practised terms – fostered development of two publics in Africa. On the one hand you had a civic public, in which Africans were incentivised to display highbrow civic virtues and signal their aspirations for public-spirited behaviour. On the other hand you had a primordial public, in which Africans primarily sought to conform to demands of their sectional allegiances – whether they were ethnic groups, clans, or religious groups.

The co-evolution of these two publics produced schizophrenic citizens in the newly independent who at once sought to fulfill the demands of both publics. However, the problem was that the two publics were governed by different moralities. The primordial public, on account of its intimate relationships and socialised forms of accountability, incentivised people to strive towards in-group fairness. The civic public was different. Because it was composed of individuals from different primordial publics, the civic public was marked by competition over resources, but without the disciplining effects of a shared morality.

The consequences of this reality were catastrophic. First, the existence of the two publics created opportunities for moral arbitrage, especially by elected public officials. The lack of a commonly shared morality in the public sphere allowed these individuals to appropriate public resources for private benefit. The same leaders would then share a portion of the loot with members of their primordial public – ethnic groups, clans, et cetera. The latter move allowed them to keep their conscience clean. It was OK to steal from the public as long as one would cleanse their conscience by contributing to the welfare of members of their ethnic group.

Of course the only problem was that once leaders locked in the support of members of their primordial public, they would then not be incentivised to share as much of the loot derived from the public sphere. And so you had a situation in which elites were grabbing all they could from the public sphere in the name of their co-ethnics or clan members; but little of it was actually trickling down to the primordial public. In short, moral arbitrate led to total collapse of accountability.

Ekeh’s is a parsimonious and compelling account of where we find ourselves as a nation. Our leaders are stealing money left, right, and centre in our name. But very little of this money is making its way to the grassroots. Our continued acceptance of the ideology of two publics – through our support for ethnic politics and specific ethnic chiefs – allows for incredible levels of moral arbitrage. Our leaders have boxed us in. And now they can loot all the way to the bank.

This is why it is possible for adults to steal billions of shillings meant for pregnant women, HIV control, and children’s medicines. It is possible that people died out of these actions. It is possible that more will die in the next weeks and months. And those implicated will continue to rest easy. They know they have the protection of the primordial public. And that logics of moral arbitrage will protect them from the wrath of the public.