Kenya - 45 Years too Long

For Philip Kiarie it has been 45 years too long waiting for justice.

In the run-up to the 2007 General Elections I came across a ghastly hate email against the ODM leader, written and undersigned by the son of a (re-elected) hardline minister. The same minister is widely seen as being associated with Mungiki. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the inferiority of leadership in Kenya is concerned.

Deep inside, many Kenyans are aware of the repulsive character of their leaders. The high turnover of ministers and MPs at the just concluded General Election is a pointer. However, devoid of much choice, Kenyans have become used to, and have all along been hoodwinked by a class of leaders – not only political figures, but also religious, cultural, and some intellectual leaders, who insist they have an inalienable right to their positions and to the shameless self-allocated perks and mheshimiwa culture that come along. Their obsessive interests are limited to positions, wealth and the preferably frantic support from ethnic constituencies.

Many of these leaders have managed to hang on since independence. Others, who joined later (and I would love to name them all), have seamlessly fitted themselves into these mafia networks and completely belied past civic engagements and relatively sober reputations. Thirty years ago, I was convinced that the country had the ingredients and potential to emulate the Asian Tiger economies. This was before I had understood the Moi regime and the dismal characters that hovered around him and managed to survive until today, now glued to the Kibaki regime and sometimes also sitting tight in ODM. These people have never walked their talk.

They had 45 years to address the burning land question in the country, but all they did was to steal and acquire huge tracts of land for themselves.

They had 45 years to find innovative and affordable housing solutions for the majority of poor Kenyans, but all they did was building preposterous and huge mansions for themselves in mashambani and in town and becoming greedy landlords for dozens if not hundreds of tenants.

They had 45 years to address safe, affordable and reliable public transport, but all they did was showing off their fleets of latest models of Mercedes and four-wheel drives. While the country burns, more than 50 new MPs had nothing better to do than converting their fat car loans into luxury cars at various outlets in Industrial Area.

They had 45 years to establish effective, efficient, independent and robust institutions, but all they did was running them down, stealing from them, and using them for job nepotism and for political expediency.

They had 45 years to devise pro-active anti-poverty programmes, but all they did was show-time strategies, sweet-talk, playing with donors, and despising the poor as if they were rats in the garbage.

They had 45 years to establish a competent, impartial and reliable Police Force, but all they did was corrupting the Force as an armed wing of the ruling party and promoting gangs-for-hire, which they turn into ethnic militias when they feel embattled.

They had 45 years to produce good infrastructure and services – roads, water, electricity, and communications -, and all they did was fraternising with cowboy contractors, and grossly mismanaging the sector to their own narrow benefits.

They had 45 years to establish a world-class education system in Kenya, but all they did was giving Kenyans sub-standard free primary school after 40 years of waiting, while their own offspring study in expensive private establishments, preferably overseas.

They had 45 years to establish inclusive primary health care and preventive measures, but all they did was relying on churches and NGOs and let people die if they could not pay, while enjoying first class services by ‘private’ doctors and hospitals for themselves.

They had 45 years to prove to Kenyans that they are all equal in their aspirations, opportunities, human rights and cultural traditions, but all they did was to protect – at any cost as we now see – a resented Kikuyu-dominated hegemony and the selected rich from other tribes they need to spread their tentacles all over the country, while regional disparities and abject poverty (including among ordinary Kikuyus) continue to pester.

They had 45 years to respect and promote freedom and democratic rights, but all they did was keeping their flocks in bondage in order to control them in the pursuit of selfish interests and to issue death threats to heroes like Githongo, Maina Kiai, Muthoni Wanyeki, David Ndii and others.

They had 45 years to make Kenya a prosperous, proud and peaceful nation, but all they did was giving Kenyans the breadcrumbs from their tables – a classroom here, a dispensary there, a water-point, a piece of road, a sack of maize…and piga makofi.

They had 45 years to live the way they pretend in Sunday church, but all they did was to throw ethics, humility, compassion, and justice over board. With the second MP having been killed within a week, we can now take it as confirmed that since 1963 the Kenya leadership has never excluded outright liars and killers.

The assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, G.M. Kariuki, Alexander Muge, Robert Ouko and many others were all based on the same script: To defend an entrenched Mafia hegemony. They are those, who right now do not want the Kofi Annan mediation to succeed and sit tight in and around State House, those, who don’t mind burning more of their flock, those who cling to their extremist stands and allow hate messages to circulate and protect their vernacular ‘Mille Collines’ radios, those who allow parochialism to erase better judgement, those who have completely lost semblance of human beings.

It is time for the still sober but shocked Kenyan citizens to stop their helpless praying or gently laying flowers at freedom corner. They should in their millions march to State House and stay there peacefully until the mayhem ends and the culprits are brought to The Hague. The tragedy is that this won’t happen.

*Philip Kiarie initially wrote this as a letter to the editor.

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