What administrators can learn from efficient colonial system

Police recruits receiving instructions during driving school lessons from colonial police in Nairobi, November 1955. [File]

When Kenya became independent in 1963, the new republic inherited several administrative systems that were useful in helping the government govern with ease.

The provincial administration became a tool for not only providing government services to the population, but also the closest the government could get to the people. Unfortunately, the initial regimes used the DCs and DOs to suppress dissent. In the first two decades, these administrators were semi-gods who were feared.