Foreign envoys shut up, we have oil

By PETER WANYONYI
The African villager remains an enigma to the West. Multiple generations of wazungu have tried to awe what colonialists called the ‘native’ with all manner of wonders — miraculous medical cures, flying machines, iron snakes, the works.

But none of that has changed us, though. We are who we were. African leaders, mostly trained overseas, see the wonders of modern civilisation in the West, the good service delivered by appointments based on merit and not tribe, the superb governance that accountability can deliver, and then they go back home to the jua kali way of doing things.

This is by ensuring that tribalism determines everything we do and how we do it.

Africa — and Kenya is no exception — has thus sought to tread two divergent, irreconcilable paths; one in which we hold onto our traditions and the old tribal ways of doing things, and a second, Western-inspired path in which a semblance of democracy and meritocracy is in place. It has not worked.

Handouts
And so we stumble on, trying and failing to develop a capitalist society with a democratic base. But it seems there is so much public money lying around idle that it kills all incentive to work. Why not just steal it and appoint a few tribesmen to help us while we are at it?

Pompous envoys from Western capitals had developed the bad habit of lecturing and hectoring us about silly things like good governance and being non-tribal in appointing public servants. They could get away with this because Kenya was poor and because we depended on their handouts for our survival.

Such is the fate of the man whose wife is fed by the neighbour. He shouldn’t be surprised when the neighbour welcomes himself to his matrimonial bed as happened when the American ambassador started holding political, er sorry, peace rallies.

And then we discovered oil and the tables turned fast.

Some Western envoys are reported to be running all over town trying to secure an appointment to see the president, a minister or a permanent secretary — anyone who is anything in government. But mysteriously, everyone in government is too busy in an ingenious remake of the old mantra, ‘come tomorrow’.

The results are evident: Ministers are having a whale of a time shuffling parastatal fat cats and appointing their tribesmen. One minister is calculated to have appointed, in parastatals that fall under his ministry, 70 per cent of all top managers and board members from his own tribe. Another is embroiled in a sack-and-reinstate fight with a huge state corporation — with billions of shillings at stake.

Meritocracy
Meanwhile, the poor villagers beneath whose land the oil was found still starve patiently, awaiting government assistance. We lecture them about ‘meritocracy’ when they wonder why we appoint our tribesmen from far off to manage even the smallest affairs for ‘them’.

It’s all about merit, you see. The locals don’t know how to manage things professionally and so the ‘real professionals’ must assist them. What is this nonsense about tribalism when all appointees are qualified anyway?