Vision 2060 or fantasy? The hard truth behind Ruto's first world dream

President William Ruto during the national conversation on Beyond Vision 2030. [PCS]

The First World is more than steel, concrete and mortar. It is an entire way of life, a philosophical and material cultural universe. The philosophy comes first, the material follows. Those who desire a share in that world will begin by understanding and embracing its philosophical culture. That is to say, its mores and values, and the entirety of its critical self-evaluation, self-esteem, and social responsibility and accountability. Its ability to frown at some things and to embrace others. 

Those who want the material culture without the philosophical culture mistake desire for reality. They hallucinate. Over the past four years, Kenya can be said to have been hallucinating.

The State has distinguished itself for mistaking desire for reality. The Kenya Kwanza government has demonstrated adeptness at announcing revolutions, and launching and inaugurating programmes. It gives statistics that do not tally with the people’s lived experience, announcing imaginary successes.

Establishment politicians have talked of “President Ruto’s great achievements.” They taunt their detractors with non-existent “reality.” Kithure Kindiki, Moses Wetang’ula and Musalia Mudavadi lead the choir. “Oh, thanks to the wise leadership of President Ruto; Oh, Kenya is a manufacturing powerhouse. Oh, we have created millions of jobs! Oh . . .  . affordable. . . . Oh!”

Of course none of this is true. Behind such a background, President Ruto’s recently announced Vision 2060 must look like another fantasy? It has the mark of a typical Don Quixote hallucination.

The roadmap that was announced on Wednesday sounded like a money trap, into which the country could sink resources, in return for nothing. For a fine line defines the space between vision and fantasy. And until proven otherwise, President Ruto’s Singaporean dreams, thus far, have the silhouette of fanciful delusions.

The dreams are increasingly quixotic. So named after a fictional character whom the 17th-century Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes created, quixotic individuals initially sound visionary. They market extravagant dreams that are billed to transform society. Yet, they ignore common sense, reality and lived experience. In the Kenyan case, narrative has outrun evidence.

Together with Oburu Oginga, President Ruto has, in the span of four days, announced the making of two different dream teams. One should fashion a joint ODM-Kenya Kwanza manifesto for next year’s general election. The other one should fly Kenyans into a futuristic First World; an East African Singapore, and a regional Eldorado. Visionary agenda by a regime that is big on dramatizing non-existent achievement cannot be taken seriously, beyond the phantastic drama of the moment.

Put together with a melange of elite power bargains in the broad-based ODM-Kenya Kwanza world, the true character of the Ruto-Oginga visionary dream is confounding.  Are these leaders defining a visionary path for the country, or are they engaged in a scramble for Kenya? It is more appropriate to see in their activities an elite power bargain, disguised as a search for a better Kenya.

Dreams are magnificent because they are unrestrained by reality. But they are not necessarily visions. A vision comes with obligations. Foremost is the ability and proclivity of its owners. Can they be trusted to make their vision real? Do they have the discipline it takes?

Africa has had many dreamers whose dreams have morphed into sheer fantasy. From Pan-African unity to industrialization, and from regional integration to  digital transformation. The lesson is that capability alone is not enough.

A country like Kenya has brilliant engineers, economists, and other professionals, yet it has failed to actualize previous visions. The challenge is that the political class has little proclivity towards discipline, public accountability, and respect for the law. This is the trap.

Indeed, it is unlikely that Kenya needs another visionary agenda. A dedicated performance matrix with visionary leaders seem more like what the country needs. Ruto and Oburu are not those leaders. Nor is the train of Kindiki, Mudavadi, Wetang’ula and the rest of the supporting cast.

The conversion mechanism for good visions is absent from the character of the broad-based team and its brand of the Kenyan dream. Its First World idea is a fantasy of skyscrapers, underground railway lines, and spaghetti highways. It is not about a State that works, which is to say a people-focused State that obeys the law and delivers the independence promissory vision.

In a sense, the Kenyan vision was pre-existent with independence. For the avoidance of doubt, the dream is encapsulated in the psalm that is the Kenyan national anthem. It speaks of a nation that recognizes God as the author of all creation. It dreams of God blessing this our land and nation. From there, the Kenyan psalmist sees a society founded on justice as the shield and defender, where people dwell in unity, peace and liberty, with plenty in its borders.

Mwai Kibaki saw in it what he called “a working nation.” This was his understanding of the anthem’s call for “service as our earnest endeavour.”  But most significant is the dream of a glorious Kenyan nation that rewards labour. The national psalmist put it in these words, “Let all in one accord, in common bond united, build this our nation together. And the glory of Kenya, the fruit of our labour, fill every heart with thanksgiving.”

After that, you do not need another vision, except seasonal implementation matrices, within the framework of the law. If a minister is summoned before a parliamentary committee, he dutifully appears.  He conducts his business before the committee with the essential discipline, respect and decorum. He does not look at his office as a “lucrative” personal reward for loyalty to his boss, and a license for impunity. That is where the Kenyan dream begins falling. 

It falls at the doorstep of impunity, signalled by State House itself. When the court stops a construction project in the Mt. Kenya forest, in Imenti, the government goes on with it anyway. When another court order stops an Ebola project in Nanyuki, State House and the Ministry of Health ignore it.

Kenyan ministers are encouraged to imagine that they are above the law. They drive on the wrong side of the road, and make unpalatable political noise at rallies (despite being barred from active politics).

They refuse to answer questions in Parliament and call fellow Kenyans hyenas. They justify violent conduct in police-led goon activity. Now, this does not make for a State that will take any country into First World status.

Equal application of the law to everybody, everywhere, all the time, is the starting point. If this is lacking, the First World vision begins shaping into a hallucination. State House hallucinates and invites the rest of the country to hallucinate with it.

The true Eldorado, in point of fact, begins in the psychological space. How do we fix the Kenyan psyche before we could fix the roads and bridges? This question is absent in President Ruto’s dreams.

For the President has, these past four years, demonstrated a peculiar capacity to normalize dysfunction. Broken roads across the country and fantastic promises to “fix them within the next six months” without fixing them speak to a psychological challenge. The normalisation of bribes and corruption speaks to the same. So, too, is abandoning of projects and the starting of new ones.

Blatant promissory lies are normal in Kenya. You see them in the dysfunctional social health insurance fund (SHIF). The State’s insistence that this dud fund is working is easily the biggest proof of a hallucinating government.

University funding is dysfunctional, and management of public order with support from goons is dysfunction. When dysfunction is normal, accepted and justified by the State, there is no more vision left. Everything is pure fantasy. 

If Kenyans are showing cynicism towards Ruto’s dreams of a grand future, then such is the background. It speaks to a graveyard of promises, and an insistence by the State that it has realized “great achievements that opponents refuse to acknowledge.”

The critical question is, in effect, whether Kenya should spend more money on teams that are engaged in fantasy. The Kenya we lack belongs to the common sense domain. There are, indeed, numerous low-hanging fruits that Kenyans – led by State House – close their eyes to. This is possibly because First World societies are not built by leaders who desire to become super rich; and especially not by those who must become wealthy at no matter what cost; nor whose head they crush underfoot.

First World status begins with basic behaviour, habit and character. How do people behave on the roads? If boda-boda motorbikes are crisscrossing the roads from all directions, contemptuously ignoring traffic regulations, you are far from a First World nation. In Singapore, you will not find a motorbike carrying three people. In Kenya, we carry as many as six. Rider, father, mother, three children all sit on the same bike.

Moreover, none of them wears a safety helmet. On the next bike, someone is babysitting a goat, across his legs. On another one, a passenger is holding up a huge object that blocks his own vision and strays into the path of oncoming traffic. In the same section of the road, someone is pulling a handcart in the wrong direction of the traffic. A dog is crossing. Another one has a rotting carcass, and vultures are trying to eat it, but vehicles are scaring them. Pedestrians are cutting across the road, completely ignoring the crossing flyover, and the dead dog, only a few meters away. Becoming Singapore begins with correcting such things.

They are basic behavioural traits that people pick up at home, way before going to school. The ability to say, “Thank you,” for every good gesture and every favour extended to you; waiting at the lift and being sufficiently mindful to say, “After you,” as you allow someone else to enter or leave the lift ahead of you; or the ability to step out of the crowded path and give way to someone else. This is where nations begin becoming First World communities.

So, who will teach Kenyans to embrace Singaporean mindsets and behaviours before Eldorado highways could become meaningful? Must we send teams of experts across the country to collect information on keeping time and respecting appointments? In Kenya, we arrive for our appointment one and a half hours late. But we still expect someone to be waiting for us. If they have left, we get furious. We call them to ask whether they are that impatient.

Then there is our love for noise. Kenyans guffaw and shout brazenly on the phone in public places, almost like people suffering from cocktails of attention-craving mental disorders. Neighbourhood pubs are blatantly noisy, as are neighbourhood houses of prayer. Kenyans worship deaf gods. They must scream and throw tantrums at these gods.

Nighttime religious fellowships are competitions in noise-making. Sometimes shrine against shrine, and sometimes shrine against a noisy house of drink and sin. You would imagine that the deity being worshipped is asleep. He must be woken up by sociopathic and psychotic noisy conduct. Loud drums, whistles, and caterwauling are what this god needs. But none of this makes for First World conduct.

Correcting these sociopathic habits is the start of any journey to Singapore. Singapore rejects loud music in public transport, and littering in public spaces. It calls for accountability from those charged with the duty of correcting these absurdities. Kenyans have heard of the progeny of top politicians, who run matatus that break all the laws in the book, and are looking for new laws to break. These spoilt fellows are untouchable. They imagine that they own the country and the people in it too. Their parents cannot take us to Singapore.

Both President Ruto and future presidents do not need the stuff called Kenya Vision 2060. They only need fidelity to the law, and good old common sense. From these simple spaces, focus will organically flow to more challenging spaces. Kenya’s Lee Kwan Yew will jail his spouse if she is a thief. He will keep private family affairs –  like weddings –  private. He will avoid flaunting riches before poor people. Most likely he will have none, anyway.

He will leave other people’s property alone – and will especially avoid primitive accumulation of wealth. He will respect the law and avoid shooting the youth in the legs. He will not spend five years on campaigning for re-election, deal-making, and leading the nation in hallucination. Before this Lee Kuan Yew arrives, Kenya is in the grip of visionary phantasmagoria.