How to manage the economy juju style

 There is one man you never find in those traditional African empires: A Minister of Finance and planning cranking the numbers! Photo: Courtesy

Look, managing the economy has never been our thing. If you gather 10 Kenyans and ask them how much money they spend per year, you will only get sheepish smiles.

When you are born in a continent of plenty, where the sun always rises and sets at a given time, the rains come on schedule, dowry and stealing livestock from the enemy tribe are the pillars of the economy, and nearly every problem can be fixed by a witchdoctor slaughtering a miserable creature, why would you care about shillings and cents?

With tremendous respect to departed spirits, I doubt those old chiefs really managed anything apart from their vast harems.

I only picture them standing stiffly in official regalia, a feather here, a cowrie shell there, a ceremonial spear in hand while speaking to their subjects in voices dripping with royalty and command born of centuries of genetic engineering.

I see the official State House witchdoctor hovering in the background to scare off the opposition as the big man quaffs choice millet beer laced with honey from the finest hives.

I suspect economy was the last thing on his mind. Instead, the big question was: “Do I sleep with wife number eight or summon the rainmaker’s 15-year-old daughter?”

I say this because there is one man you never find in those traditional African empires: A Minister of Finance and planning cranking the numbers!

In the circumstances, I think the economy sort of sorted itself out. If the cows died, they died.

If the cows reused to go on heat, they refused. If the crops failed, someone blamed departed spirits.

And if things got really bad, the old chief folded his blanket and told his subjects, “Follow me,” and led them to Congo or wherever.

That is why, despite being hailed as the cradle of mankind and home of civilisation, our lais·sez-faire attitude towards life killed our innovation, with the economy only churning out jobs for blacksmiths, herbalists and a rainmaker or two.

We never bothered to find out how to make our goats give birth to twins and insisted on wiping our bums with leaves for millennia.

What happened during El-Nino, when all leaves were submerged?

I suspect our presidents, like the African chiefs of old, don’t have the foggiest clue how the economy unravels.

They probably just watch events with the bemused detachment of a handcart pusher stalling traffic on Mombasa Road to earn Sh50.

Now, if only we could turn back the clock, raid the Karamojong of Uganda, and lead their cattle into Central Bank of Kenya...

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