Kenya does not need a benevolent dictator
Columnists
By
Lawi Sultan Njeremani
| Jan 24, 2026
In Kenya’s vibrant forums and heated discussions, a troubling sentiment emerges; the yearning for a benevolent dictator to vanquish corruption, underdevelopment, and injustice. I contend that this is a perilous illusion — a slippery slope into an irretractable abyss.
Benevolent dictatorship lacks inherent accountability or self-limiting mechanisms. Its broad latitude, meant for good, inevitably spawns new injustices, corruption, and stagnation, clashing irreconcilably with Kenya’s 2010 Constitution.
Benevolent dictatorship is a sugar rush offering fleeting highs but guarantees a bitter crash. The appeal is understandable.
Democracy’s sluggish pace is frustrating amid scandals or stalled infrastructure. A strong leader promises swift action. Yet history reveals the fallacy; unchecked power corrupts, even benevolent intentions.
Consider Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, a classic benevolent dictatorship. Tito, Prime Minister from 1945–1953 and then President for life, unified a fractured, multi-ethnic nation post-World War II, promoting brotherhood and unity against Soviet influence. His market socialism spurred industrialization, raising living standards and establishing Yugoslavia as a Non-Aligned Movement leader. Stability reigned for decades. But the costs were steep.
Tito’s secret police crushed dissent, jailing thousands in brutal camps. Economic growth masked fragility, fueled by unsustainable loans leading to a $20 billion debt crisis by the 1980s. His death in 1980 unraveled everything.
Without institutional checks, ethnic tensions exploded into the Yugoslav Wars from 1991–2001, claiming over 130,000 lives and splintering the country. Tito’s benevolence delayed, not resolved, divisions—creating new horrors to perpetuate control.
Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister from 1959–1990, and later under his moral influence until 2015, offers a more polished example. Lee engineered an economic miracle, lifting GDP per capita from $516 in 1965 to over $12,000 by 1990. Anti-corruption drives and social engineering fostered harmony in a diverse society.
Yet Lee’s rule was authoritarian. Opposition faced detention without trial, media censorship, and crippling lawsuits. Civil liberties eroded under strict laws, including caning for minor offenses, bans on public assembly. Inequality grew, with a Gini coefficient hitting 0.48 in the 2000s, where zero represents perfect equality and 1 represents perfect inequality.
Lee Kuan Yew shared in an interview that the difficult part in his transformation of Singapore was getting the population behaving like a Third World to start behaving like the First World. In essence, discarding habits like littering or spitting and adopting more ideal citizenship values through education and formidable governance systems.
Tito’s Yugoslavia mirrors Kenya alarmingly, serving as a stark caution. Both nations grapple with ethnic diversity. Yugoslavia’s Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks parallel Kenya’s. Tito’s suppression of tribalism for unity was superficial. But what follows? Tito’s exit triggered chaos.
Economically, Tito’s debt-fueled growth collapsed into ruin. Kenya’s mega-projects, if dictator-driven, no matter the benevolence, risk similar unsustainability.
Our Constitution decentralises power to prevent such centralisation, yet a benevolent ruler would sideline it, reviving pre-2010 impunity. Singapore’s model, while prosperous, fits a tiny, homogeneous state, not Kenya’s vast complexities. Lee’s controls might curb our graft but at the cost of our vibrant civil society.
Benevolent dictatorship is incompatible with Kenya’s Constitution, which mandates separation of powers, rights, and devolution. It betrays our democratic ethos, born from struggle against autocracy. This would erode social consciousness, replacing collective agency with paternalism.
Solutions lie in bolstering sovereign democracy, transparent institutions, citizen engagement and anti-corruption reforms. Kenya’s struggle is getting elected representatives behaving like a Third World to start behaving like the First World.