Kenya walking to infamy due to panic over next year's election

Countries often travel without knowing that they have begun the journey. History tells us about diverse peoples’ travels, not so much to show us what we have become but as a warning of what we could become. The goings-on in Kenya today raise our collective antennae to the need to review our journey.

I suggested in these pages, two weeks ago, that Kenya could be on the Last Safari to Pagak, Okot p’Bitek’s proverbial homestead of death. This thought has all the seriousness of historical caution. The role of warning mirrors is not prediction of doom, but invitation to adjust our sails to the correct winds. Kenya, just now, looks like a country drifting into the Slough of Despond. The captains of State are called upon to rethink the direction and the motions.

In a sense, we look like Uganda in 1972. The survivors of the seasons may recall this. President William Ruto has asked foreigners involved with small-scale businesses to pack up and go. He has also announced the shutting down of a leading manufacturer in Kajiado County, apparently because of “doing nothing for the locals, for over one hundred years.” He says someone else will replace them.

In a sense, this reminds us of the 1972 expulsion from Uganda, of “exploitative foreigners”, by Idi Amin. About 80,000 Asians were the target. They left over a 90-day period that ended in November of that year. Amin was “giving back Uganda to Ugandans.” Is President Ruto “giving back Kenya to Kenyans”? The resemblance is uncanny. 

But there is much more happening. A journalist was abducted, tortured and dumped hundreds of kilometres away, in the thick of the night. The State has pleaded ignorance and “asked the police to investigate.” It is a simple attempt at silencing the Media, and other independent voices. As the General Election season kicks off, these voices should remain quiet, or else have it hard. Again, this has the look of Kampala under Idi Amin.

It is tempting to read the happenings in the country as a pile of unrelated problems. Labour disputes that paralyse air travel and the public health sector; corruption here and there; political thuggery somewhere else; an abduction; a killing; a procurement controversy over police uniform; quarrels with foreigners; challenges with university funding; loud public quarrels within the political class; worries about free and fair elections; among other challenges.

This is a transverse section of the Kenyan condition. Is the Kenyan State having problems with the laws? Almost everywhere, we seem to see constitutional, contractual and administrative functions in a mess. But are we also seeing political power increasingly intruding into these spaces? We are seeing billions of shillings being spent on changing the outward appearance of the police. Yet, we are also seeing an irregular command taking charge of the police.

Everything seems to circle back to anxiety over next year’s election. Panic is becoming palpable. President William Ruto recently told a joint meeting of Kenya Kwanza and ODM delegates, “We must win this election.” And this, alone, seems to be the energy driving this labyrinth of absurdities.

The State is under pressure to do many odd election-related things. But it is also bungling others, because it lacks the capacity. Populist gestures are being made to please small-scale business people by expelling foreigners. But, at the same time, the State raises tax on the same “small Kenyans” it seeks to please. It beats them up in the streets of Nairobi and bars them from presenting a memo to the Revenue Authority.

Then, suddenly, the President remembers they are supposed to be pleased. He issues a Uganda-like directive, instantly lowering the tax. 

But everywhere, public hospitals are in paralysis, because the State cannot honour a collective bargaining agreement. Aviation workers are on strike for similar reasons. Kenya throws international air travel into a spin. The ripple effect is a mind-boggler. But even as the State cannot meet its industrial obligations, it is also busy, creating optics of infrastructural development. Roadworks seem to suddenly crop up everywhere.

It will be interesting to watch how far, close to August, the projects being launched, and those mushrooming quietly, will go. For, everything seems to be about managing the nation towards 10 August 2027. Focus is on “We must win.”

Yet, as Prof George Saitoti famously said, “There comes a time when the nation is more important than an individual.” Is Kenya reaching such a time, once again? Is it time for the country’s top brass to rethink this journey into the Slough of Despond?

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser.