GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY OR US AGAINST THEM? Another Unsuccessful Attempt to Fix the Kenya Virus

By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Today, I write to submit that before the scramble and partition for Africa, the continent and especially pre-Kenya, was made of unified stable communities. 

This is not to say we were free from our own squabbles, here and there, but there were mechanisms to mitigate such conflicts. 

However, the coming of western missionaries and subsequently, the colonizers brought division in the continent based on many parameters such as religion, political parties, collaborators and non-collaborators, tribalism to mention, but a few.

This humble beginning marked the foundations of our disunity to date as a people.

However, when we realised this game of dividing us and ruling us, we came together in disregard of our tribes, our religions of affiliation, our leaders, our form and even our political thought or inclinations, just like the GenZees now, to forge a national unity in many corners of the continent, including here in Kenya, to fight for independence and sovereignty. 

Indeed, the moments of declarations of African states independence were the most beautiful moments of not only freedom from colonisers but freedom from many criteria of our present facets of disunity. 

Unfortunately, moments are just moments, soon enough we reverted to our factory settings and started pitying each other using many bases of disunity. 

From ethnicity to regionalism. From classes to statuses. From religions to sects and factions. From traditionalism to modernism. 

From low residential areas to upper markets. From ruling parties to opposition parties. From Hustlers to Dynasties. 

The worst form of division now is between politicians and the rest of the population, including professionals. 

Why worst? You are asking. Because politics makes the decisions for the other sectors of the economy. 

I can literary say there has been a paradigm shift from the 18th Century Economic Determinism of Karl Marx to Political Determinism in the way the world is unfolding itself going forward. 

Apparently, what has been going on in Kenya for the past four weeks counting led by Genzees has been both devastating and eye opening.

On one hand, devastating because property and lives, approximately 60 souls, have been lost. 

One would ask, was the necessary force necessary for an independent country?

I would rather think differently and say it was necessary during colonization because we were fighting to liberate ourselves from an outsider.

But, fighting between us to liberate ourselves should not have been and should never be meted with such unnecessary brutal force even as we go forward as a country. 

On the other hand, an eye opener because it brought to the fore courageously and candidly the Kenyan virus. 

A virus of bad governance and leadership that has been killing this beautiful country called Kenya. 

The 2-3 million GenZees managed to do what the 47 million Kenyans have failed to do in decades, opening our eyes and those of political oppressors. 

They managed to bring to the fore, the TRUTH, what even our western colonizers and friends feared to share with us openly and used difficult concepts such as transparency and accountability. 

The onus now is with the president to cease this opportunity and do the right thing, fix the Kenya Virus. 

It’s not too late yet to see the wisdom that has visited him in the confines of state house and make it right.

Clock is ticking Mr. president, keep your eye and ears at the bottom not up and you will be wiser.

Unfortunately, my observation of the unfolding state crafting by the president seems not to be dispensing and administering the full dose to the Kenya Virus as envisioned by the GenZees. 

From the proposals before parliament, the President has given, in my considered professional, opinion a half dose to the Kenya virus. 

The challenge with giving half doses is to just keep the virus at bay, which can be dangerous for when it erupts or attacks again it may be fatal and worse the virus may become drug resistant or even mutate to a more lethal Kenya 2 virus. 

Because this point is very important for the president and especially the nation to digest, allow me to use an analogy from the jungle. 

This would be probably clearer because I was in Maasai Mara recently. 

Like the Lion King, GenZees killed a buffalo, one of the big fives, but unfortunately hyenas have come to chase the Lion King away and are about to have a free feast. What do you think is the feeling and mindset of the Lion King? 

Remember, the Lion King went for the buffalo because he is very hungry for food, just like the GenZees are very hungry for good leadership and good governance!

Denying the Lion King the feast is obviously opening another window for a more lethal attack of either mother buffalo or even an elephant this time.

Notably, what is happening in the recent state crafting by the president is reminiscent to our independence struggle where the Mau Mau fighters kicked out the European colonisers, but the founding father of the nation, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and his fellow political elites, who were not in the bush and never saw bullets flying nor teargas, took advantage of the situation and ceased over the presidency and its accompanying goodies, leaving the freedom fighters in the bush wallowing with poverty and desperation. 

History miraculously repeats itself in unprecedented ways. 

President Ruto is cut pasting the colonial script by bringing in his fellow politicians to cabinet despite the derogatory remarks, track record, and political opposition they stagged on his presidential bid to salvage the political profession and its interests. 

This leaves the Genzees at a crossroads or salivating as hyenas eat the sumptuous hunt.

They say birds of a feather flock together, but I didn’t know before then whether they were of the same feathers or even of different feathers like these Kenyan political birds.

In the unfolding GenZees crisis, whose solution had been given as state crafting a Government of National Unity, President Ruto ensured that he expands the space of the government by bringing in fellow politicians but pitting them against GenZees.

I see a very likely possibility that President Ruto sold the GenZees crisis as a crisis of politicians not his.

In the eyes of many politicians, the GenZees movement is not ethical to their course and personal interests, which they sell to us as public interests. 

How did the president likely do it? In my considered professional opinion, as a sociologist, he transformed the Genzee conflict into a dichotomy of us vs them.

Remember he is very good at this if Hustler and Dynasty dichotomy still rings a bell! 

Accordingly, the war boundaries are drawn not between GenZees and the president but now between the professionals called politicians and the public. 

President Ruto successfully made majority of the politicians to see that the Genzee crisis is not his war alone but a war against all politicians. 

The President must have made it clear to his fellow politicians that “IF he loses to Genzees, THEN politics, which is about personal interests sold as public interests to the voters, would have been overridden by true or real public interests, which is a threat to their wealth, power, and lavish lifestyles at the expense of the poor, the ardent taxpayer. 

Thus, because politics thrives on personal interests sold as public interest, it was very easy to convince politicians to join what they call the Government of National Unity.

The consequence of this action or strategy is that it’s not vested in the truth of the meaning of the concept unity. 

In fact, it portends disunity by splitting the country into us, politicians against them, the GenZees and supporting or cheering crowds as Prof Caspher Odengi would call them. 

The super strategist as the president is, he has now captured majority of the politicians, even the most vocal: Raila, Mbadi, Joho, Oparanya and Wandayi, to come to the rescue of Kenya Kwanza administration in his imagination, but this is packaged to vail politicians and the public by believing the new government of national unity is to rescue the career called politics and country respectively.

This is a classic case of trading or scapegoating personal interests for public interest. Alas! 

They have neither come to the rescue of Kenya Kwanza’s administration or even the country, but the truth is they have come to the rescue of the so-called profession of politics for purposes of safeguarding personal or their own political interests. 

Finally, remember Vilredo Pareto once said that the governing minority political elites are organised, while the majority voters are disorganised. And it’s a fact the organised minority impose their will over the disorganised majority. 

The disorganised GenZees: Leaderless, formless, tribeless, party-less, the majority had posed a threat to the minority governing elites, the politicians. 

The war has now been transformed from President Ruto vs GenZees to politicians’ vs the GenZees and the rest of the cheering crowd. 

The question may be, is this division into them against us qualify to be a government of national unity or disunity? #SisemiKitu