When thieves became "sharp guys": The strange arithmetic of Kenyan leadership

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There was a time when leadership in the village was not discovered on a campaign poster. It was discovered slowly, almost accidentally, like a good tree whose shade one noticed only after years of watching people gather beneath it.

Village wisdom, where truth walks barefoot, understood something that modern politics appears to have misplaced: leadership had to be seen before it was named.

A child who settled quarrels at school was remembered. The one who organised football matches without fighting was noticed. The young man who could speak sensibly before elders was invited closer to the fire. The girl who helped neighbours without being instructed was quietly marked for bigger responsibilities. By the time such a person reached Parliament, a university union or a public office, somebody could tell his story from childhood.

“Ah, this one? We knew him when he was still herding goats.”

Leadership had a biography before it acquired a title.

Then something happened.

Nobody seems to know exactly when.

Perhaps leadership took a matatu to Nairobi and forgot to return.

The Bible says, “There is no authority except that which God has established” (Romans 13:1). The Qur’an similarly speaks of God commanding that trusts be delivered to those entitled to them and that judgment be exercised with justice (Qur’an 4:58). These scriptures have long comforted societies with the idea that leadership is not merely an accident of arithmetic.

But village wisdom has recently developed a theological question:

If all authority comes from God, surely we should occasionally ask whether some of the authorities we receive are the ones heaven intended or whether somebody merely discovered the ballot box before the angels arrived.

Kenya's Constitution tried to settle this argument. Chapter Six did not say leadership should be awarded to the loudest, richest or most connected. Article 73 describes State authority as a public trust and requires integrity, competence and suitability, alongside accountability and service to the people.

Beautiful words.

Almost poetic.

But somewhere between constitutional drafting and political practice, Chapter Six appears to have been placed on a shelf labelled: “Very Important! Please Do Not Disturb.”

Today, village wisdom hears stories that would once have disqualified a person from being trusted with the village granary, yet somehow do not prevent the same person from becoming an important political personality.

The vocabulary has also changed.

Yesterday, a dishonest fellow was a thief.

Today, he is a “sharp guy.”

A person accused of questionable financial dealings is not necessarily a suspect; he is “hustling.”

Money laundering has acquired the fashionable street name washwash, as though billions merely went to the river for a bath.

Land grabbing becomes “being smart.”

Political manipulation becomes “strategy.”

And corruption?

Apparently, corruption has undergone rehabilitation. It is now sometimes described as knowing how to “eat.”

Village wisdom is confused.

When did stealing become intelligence?

When did deception become strategy?

When did morality become an obstacle to ambition?

There are stories of people associated with fraud, dubious companies, suspicious financial dealings, land controversies and other allegations becoming celebrated figures. One hears astonishing stories of individuals who supposedly ran enterprises that collapsed, organisations that existed more comfortably on paper than in reality, or businesses whose financial biographies require a forensic accountant and three cups of strong tea.

Yet instead of asking, “What happened?” we sometimes ask, “How much does he have?”

The brown envelope has also acquired a strange constitutional position.

A headmaster once became a headmaster because teachers respected his competence.

A university union leader emerged because colleagues knew his courage.

A departmental head was recognised because years of work had demonstrated his capacity.

Today, village gossip occasionally suggests that appointment is a delicate mixture of connections, loyalty, political usefulness and, where necessary, the mysterious thickness of an envelope.

Even beauty and charisma have entered the recruitment conversation.

A young man or woman may discover that the ladder of opportunity occasionally has less to do with academic excellence than with knowing whom to smile at, whom to call and how convincingly to present oneself.

Village wisdom will not elaborate.

The elders have seen enough.

Politics has become particularly adventurous.

There was a time when an MP's leadership history could be traced through school debates, youth groups, local development initiatives and community activism. Today, somebody can arrive with a convoy, a generous pocket and a slogan printed on enough T-shirts to cover a small football field.

The village votes.

Then the honourable disappears.

For five years.

The people see the MP mainly in photographs.

Then, suddenly, election season arrives.

The honourable returns with the warmth of a long-lost relative.

“Watu wangu!”

The village remembers that apparently it has been loved all along.

And because money has become an increasingly persuasive language, the stranger with the fattest wallet can sometimes defeat the neighbour whose entire life the village knows.

Then comes the familiar tragedy.

Development stalls.

Promises evaporate.

The leader becomes unreachable.

The people complain.

The leader blames the Government.

The Government blames the county.

The county blames the previous administration.

The previous administration blames COVID.

COVID, having been dead politically for some time, cannot defend itself.

Meanwhile, institutions suffer.

We hear of politically connected appointments at public institutions. We watch organisations with enormous national importance struggle under leadership changes and questionable management, while losses accumulate and accountability becomes a game of musical chairs.

Kenya speaks confidently of overtaking Singapore.

Village wisdom sometimes wonders whether the people manufacturing the dream have ever travelled far enough to inspect the machine.

How does a country become Singapore when it rewards the opposite habits?

Singapore built institutions around discipline, competence and long-term planning.

We sometimes build institutions around personalities.

Singapore asks what works.

We sometimes ask whose turn it is.

And now even the qualification conversation has become curious. If the political system increasingly treats formal education as unnecessary for elective office, village wisdom wonders what message we are sending to children spending years studying.

Why should a child endure examinations, university fees and sleepless nights if society eventually tells him that leadership requires neither the intellectual preparation nor the ethical discipline that education is supposed to cultivate?

The issue is not that every leader must possess a collection of certificates large enough to furnish a wall.

Degrees do not automatically produce wisdom.

Neither does a PhD prevent foolishness.

But integrity, competence and suitability should not become optional accessories to public power.

A society that abandons those qualities should not be surprised when corruption becomes an institution rather than a crime.

This is the deepest danger.

If political loyalty becomes more valuable than competence, institutions weaken.

If money becomes more persuasive than character, elections become auctions.

If corruption becomes “hustling,” dishonesty becomes aspirational.

If citizens stop demanding integrity, corruption stops hiding.

And once corruption stops hiding, it starts campaigning.

Village wisdom therefore asks Kenya a very old question in very modern circumstances:

Who exactly are we choosing to lead us?

Not who can fill a stadium.

Not who can distribute the most envelopes.

Not who can shout the loudest.

Not who has the most expensive convoy.

But who has demonstrated, over time, that power will not corrupt the person we are about to trust with it?

Because leadership should not begin on nomination day.

It should begin in character.

And perhaps the village elders were wiser than we thought.

They did not need polling firms.

They watched.

They listened.

They remembered.

They knew that before giving a man the keys to the village granary, you first watched how he treated a borrowed goat.

Kenya may have forgotten that simple test.

And village wisdom, where truth walks barefoot, fears that until we remember it, the fight against corruption will remain what it increasingly resembles:

a man chasing a thief while secretly negotiating over the price of the stolen cow.