Power Vs Influence.
:What Is Happening to Our Beautiful Country?
“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice”.
James 3:16. (New International Version)
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Kenya is apparently 75% Christian, yet in a 1996 report released by Transparency International, a Berlin-based lobby group, it is ranked as the third most corrupt nation on the face of the planet. Ironic isn’t it? Actually, it is the most corrupt ‘Christian’ nation on earth! In both Nigeria and Pakistan who are ranked first and second respectively, Christians are a minority.
How is it then that our green and pleasant land, has earned itself such infamy?
The credit (if I may call it that) must go to the 74-year-old Mr Daniel arap Moi under whose helmsmanship corruption has become the fastest-growing cottage industry around.
A recent cover story in Time Magazine ran thus: “Strange things have been happening to Kenya’s President Daniel Arap Moi on the way to the piggy bank. In a country famous for it’s game parks and safaris he has found himself in the sights of an elephant gun levelled by international donors who have declared open season on corruption. The conflict centres on $ 400 million in illegal export-incentive payments that Moi’s Government made to a local jewellery maker Goldenberg, supposedly to reimburse taxes paid on imported raw materials. However no taxes had been paid and no hard currency was brought into the country. So the IMF demanded an accounting of the missing money, the equivalent of 6% of Kenya’s annual output. When the Government closed down a private prosecution of the Goldenberg team, the IMF cut off $ 169 million in credit”[1]. A candid, if somewhat less than flattering assessment of how the outside world views us.
It has grown increasingly difficult to discuss corruption with us Kenyans for a variety of reasons. Either we cannot see it touches our lives or we have become so completely bogged down in it as to feign indifference whenever it is mentioned. The truth is, it has affected our lives and well being most profoundly in the last 20 years and will continue to do so unless we change course.
Since the dawn of time, and it is recorded in the earliest annals, the insidious stain of corruption has ravaged mankind. There is evidence in the bible to suggest that the prophet Moses grappled with this vice 4,000 years ago. One famous book that tackles the subject is by Nikolai Gogol (1809-52). In 1836, this one-time Saint Petersburg government clerk published The Government Inspector a satire on the dishonesty of small town officials in Imperial Russia.
The Oxford English Dictionary describes corruption as “perversion or destruction of integrity in the discharge of public duties by bribery or favour”. Transparency International[2] have called it “the use of public power for private profit”. Greed, arrogance, malice, deceit and vengefulness are all it’s hallmarks. To look into corruption is to unveil the darkest secrets and the basest forces of the human soul: It’s real perpetrator is human nature itself.
Rome, the greatest empire the world has known was riddled with it. In A.D. 369, an anonymous writer sent a document to the Emperor Valens. An extract from this treatise read “public grants have made the rich even more extravagant, while the poor are driven by their problems into crime”[3]. The ordinary Roman was by then paying up to one third of his income in taxes and another third in rent. Sound familiar ?4 The Roman Empire’s biggest enemy was itself: The same corruption that fuelled it’s growth being responsible for it’s collapse. In today’s world, various laws and constitutions designed to keep this night of the soul in check have been enacted with varying degrees of success.
There is a pattern in the affairs of nations, a rule of thumb if you will, that always applies:
Wherever you find the rot of corruption has set in, you will invariably find leaders that are not subject to the same accountability as the populace. “When extraordinary powers are vested in any one individual in a government” wrote American revolutionary Thomas Paine in 1792, “rest assured that it will lead to the misappropriation of public funds. This individual becomes the centre round which every kind of corruption generates and forms. Give to any man a million a year and thereto the power of creating and disposing of places, at the expense of a country, and the liberties of that country are no longer secure”.5
The giant sucking sound coming from Africa nowadays is that of money leaving. A recent report allegedly emanating from a Swiss banking source, has estimated the amount held in Swiss banks on behalf of African leaders alone as being in excess of 20 billion U.S. dollars.6 In his 32 years of misrule, the late Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko is estimated to have made away with $ 1 billion. He is a prime example of the so-called Bwana Mkubwa (Big Man) who could not (constitutionally) or would not (by any other means) be held accountable.
Though some of Mobutu’s wealth was amassed as a result of ‘gifts’ he received from western nations in return for keeping communism at bay during the cold war, a large part of it came from foreign aid advanced to his impoverished countrymen. Sese Seko was notoriously unable to distinguish between his country’s coffers and his own pocket. In any case, retired General Olegusun Obasanjo, himself a former Nigerian ruler and who until recently was in detention along with the late Moshood Abiola, has said that: “in the African concept of appreciation and hospitality , a gift is a token ; it is not demanded; the value is in the spirit of the giving, not the material worth. Where a gift is excessive it becomes an embarrassment and is returned”.7
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Mobutu’s despotic regime was what may be termed an ‘imperial presidency’(one that is above the law). In this feudal scheme of things, the natural progression is for those close to ‘the throne’, be they business associates, political allies and friends, etc to develop a limited immunity to prosecution. It is human nature that the lawless will go where there is no law (or where they can get above it) and they will make the rule of the strongest reign8 something akin to the Al Capone era in 1920’s Chicago.
Once there is an obeisance to this ‘law of the jungle’ scenario, overnight you will get billionaires and multimillionaires, born of extensive and underhand dealings, springing up all over the place. What you will also find is bands of parasites living in luxurious indolence out of public taxes. This ruling clique, may claim to hold each other accountable but in reality they manipulate a country to their own ends- their sole aim is to hitch their personal wagons to the state’s gravy train.
A news agency despatch in early April ran: “Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace is set to make 19 million Zimbabwe dollars (U.S 1.18 million dollars) profit from a mansion built with government money, the Financial Gazette said today. The house dubbed “Gracelands” by it’s critics was built in the upmarket Harare suburb of Borrowdale on four hectares overlooking a golf course designed by champion international golfer Nick Price”.9 After 18 years in power, it would seem that Robert Gabriel Mugabe is another good example of an African leader who has outstayed his welcome
The source of corruption then is always the same: a leader or group of them that can no longer be held accountable. And while it may be true that most countries out of necessity have a ruling group; one that has what former US President George Bush termed “the vision thing” (enterprise and ideas for progress); it must have the fear of being overthrown or outvoted, if it is to look beyond it’s own interests.
Lord Acton’s aphorism, “Power corrupts and absolute (read unaccountable) power corrupts absolutely” may be all too familiar with many today. Sadly though, it still holds true. One need only to be honest with themselves, painfully so, to see this adage at play in present-day Kenya.
Kenyans have grown accustomed to the sight of new trunk roads that break up almost before they are completed - the end product of shoddy workmanship and unbridled greed. Roads that are built by contractors; whether local or international; on the precondition that they will give the government officials who have awarded them the tenders a percentage in kickbacks.
Gavin Bennet, a motoring correspondent, put it succinctly: “our cars are on death row the moment they are driven from the showroom”. Driving on our roads he says is like “a daily demolition derby”. If Martians existed they might easily mistake our pothole-strewn motorways for the craters on their own planet.
Indeed, the sorry state of our roads would be laughable if only one didn’t come away with a sinking feeling that they serve as a metaphor for what is happening to the rest our country.
“The name of the game is corruption and the fact is that nobody has had the will to take on the hydra-headed monster previously until now. It is becoming virtually impossible for ordinary Kenyans, for example to get any services or licences from government offices without paying what is normally known as kitu kidogo”.10 This is because as someone pointed out the other day: “the war (on corruption) has been declared for the umpteenth time but not a single battle has been fought”.
Maurice Wangutusi of the accounting firm Coopers and Lybrand made this disquieting observation :“one is tempted to ask where the revenue collected by government goes. It is patently clear that not all of the revenues collected are used to finance the intended projects. Reports issued by the Controller and Auditor-General record this fact. Indeed, Government has itself admitted that the rate of corruption in this country is very high. Most people believe and opine that a substantial part of the ‘tax’ they pay goes to finance corruption and inefficiency”.
He continues; “Corruption feeds on itself, creating a widening spiral of illegal payoffs until ultimately development is undermined and years of progress are reversed. And the very growth that permitted corruption in the past can produce a shift from productive activities to an unproductive struggle for the spoils. Over time corruption becomes entrenched, so that when Governments finally do move to contain it they meet with powerful resistance”.11
Is that not what is going on today in Kenya? Where does this leave us then? We know that the real problem is corruption and that investigating clerks in Nyayo house can only be an idea mooted by the ‘sacred cows’ that benefit from it the most. It’s foolhardy at best. In 1984 by George Orwell, ‘doublethink’ is defined as the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accept both of them.
The Kenya government seems to indulge in it’s own version of ‘doublethink’ by believing it can tackle corruption without starting at the top. Until that is addressed , fighting graft will remain a fleeting illusion- to be pursued but never attained. So how do we set about solving this problem?
The presidency, there and there alone can one begin to tackle this terrible scourge. Simply put, as long as the head of state in any country, whether elected or not, is above the law and by extension above investigation, corruption will always have a palatial home. He is the one who sets the standards for the rest of the nation. Just as a school rarely rises above it’s headmaster (bad administration), neither can a nation rise above an inept President.
As the president or leader of a country one has a great deal of responsibility. Credit for success and criticism for failure. The two go hand in hand. Pity the leader who wants the credit without the criticism. Pity him because he will breed his own enemies.12 To the man in the street what goes on at State House has always been a complete mystery. This has served to build a mystique or an aura of untouchability around the presidency.
If you were the president of a corrupt nation, could you possibly blame corruption on all manner of things apart from yourself? Who would take you seriously? What is the point of occupying the highest office in the land and watching the mushroom cloud of corruption grow without doing anything to stop it? Unless of course one was unaware of what was going on, which would point to an incredibly uninformed leader. One perhaps, who should not be in that stately position. What can be made of leaders who admit to corruption in their governments yet respond with half-baked attempts at exposure?
“Such an individual is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest in the event it should reach to himself. It is always in his interest to defend inferior abuses. So that the parts of the system he has set up will have such a common dependence that it is never expected they will attack each other”.13
When a leader is aware of the fall-out that graft has visited upon his country and does nothing about it, does not his indifference implicate him in the same? What for example can be read into the following statement?: “ The Mosop MP John Sambu (Kanu) told parliament in April that close confidantes of the President were responsible for the economic mess facing the country. He said the leaders were working behind the Head of State’s back to ensure the economy collapsed so that the ills would be blamed on the Head of State. They surround the President and cheer and praise him but the moment he leaves, they draw their knives and start eating the economy”.14
What I can read into it is this: a man is known by the company he organises (keeps). “A crucial ability for the chief executive is perceptiveness. This will bear heavily on the quality of the Presidential appointments and his ability to mould his people into an effective administration. It is not enough to say a President “can hire managers”, as he delegates he must know how to keep track of the delegated work; he must understand what his managers are managing”.15
Even if as the Mosop MP said, the President’s men are responsible, the buck ultimately stops with him for appointing them in the first place. He doesn’t have the luxury of just sitting back and saying this is wrong, that is wrong ...and I can’t do anything about it. He has to act.
“Leadership can be summed up in two words, intelligence and integrity or to use two synonyms competence and character. Integrity denotes an honourable private life. We don’t see those characteristics in government today”.16 One of the reasons the presidency is imbued with it’s powers is to be in a position to nip graft and any other malaise in the bud. If a leader misuses these powers, then of what use is his leadership? A British politician once posed four questions to ask a supposedly powerful leader. “How powerful are you? Who gave you those powers? Who are you accountable to? And finally, how can we get rid of you?” Nobody is indispensable.
Corrupt leaders wield power not influence, never influence, unfortunately most of them can’t tell the difference. The dictionary definition doesn’t help much either since the terms power and influence are often used interchangeably. It would be easier to make a distinction by examining how the two work.
Power invariably works through fear and brute force; coercion, manipulation and intimidation are it’s touchstones. It is fuelled by hush-money, payoffs and bribery. In this hunter-gatherer brand of politics, violence is commonplace, the ‘powerful’ man’s only solution when the rest fail, murder is the culmination. They acquire an appetite for destruction and a taste for blood. Yet power ultimately fails to achieve, in most cases it only destroys the lives of those who wield it, as narrow minded as they are. The same dark fate that overtook Liberia’s Samuel Doe may await all those who persist on this path.
Is power then influence given that in the end others bend to your will? No, but if that were the only yardstick for gauging influence then it would be. Power however, works against the will of the individual, influence does not; power is selfish, influence is not; power seeks glory, influence builds harmony; power divides a country, influence builds it up.
Underneath the facade we have built of peace, love and unity lies a deeply divided country. Nairobi is a place where people dressed like royalty brush shoulders with abandoned street children. Where abject squalor lives side by side with well-manicured lawns and sprawling mansions. One West African novelist could well have been describing Kenya when she wrote “Powerless is also characteristic of the poor, and poverty is personified by the mentally disturbed people who roam the streets, infested with lice, stinking so badly that their stench infests the whole city”.
“The all-pervading stench shows what happens to the ‘wretched of the earth’ affects everybody, of those who exploit the people with detached indifference, violence will force them into such recognition. There will come a time when it will no longer be possible for them to count on their ‘lucky star’. Their fat bank accounts and endless privileges they enjoy will collapse with the rebellion of the downtrodden”.17
I am not one of those advocating the violent redistribution of wealth because I believe that commerce and honest gain is the true means of enriching a country. But what we see in society today is one plunderer succeeding another and that is why we have a small upper class comprising of the superrich; a rapidly diminishing middle class, and an enormous underclass living below the poverty line.
Let’s face it, we’ve leaders with power, not influence. Power that elevates them above contradiction and is leading us down a road marked with exploitation and control. We must not make excuses for them while they continue to go against our understanding of what is right if we are to survive.
Influential leaders are a rare breed on our political landscape today. Influence works through reasoning, consensus, policy, practicality and mutual respect. Influential leaders are those who can sway the masses through sound reasoning, through example. Their integrity precedes them. They will not need to bribe the electorate, or bully the unyielding because their confidence does not come from an ability to rig or buy their way out of difficulty but from their commitment to what is right for the majority. The influential leader will receive a willing response, the powerful leader will have to buy his.
Influence may convert a friend, but power coerces friend and foe alike. Plato, Aristotle, St Thomas, Shakespeare, Galileo, Newton and Kant were men of influence but none of them exercised any noticeable power. Let’s look at some other examples, Mahatma Gandhi, was he powerful or influential?
The man, Jesus of Nazareth, Lord to all who believe, had at his disposal all the powers in the universe, yet how did he choose to work. By brute force or winning people to his ways? What of Martin Luther King Jr, or South Africa’s Bantu Steven Biko and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. What about Uganda’s Archbishop Janani Luwum and Kenya’s very own, Thomas Joseph Mboya, Ronald Ngala, Josiah Mwangi (J.M.) Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, or Robert John Ouko. Did you see power in them or influence?
Out of the ten leaders I’ve mentioned nine were slain, why? Because their murderers being merely powerful lived in constant fear of their integrity. For anyone who may think that power is strength and integrity weakness, allow me to re-calibrate your line of thinking.
Take two men who have the chance to make hefty profits in a business contract. In order to do this though, they have to get round a corrupt government official who irregularly wants a substantial payoff before awarding the deal. One man desists because he refuses to compromise his integrity. The deal is awarded to the one who parts with a little chai.18 Which of the two men’s actions required greater strength? I say the former. He knew that he stood to lose, but still held to his principles.
Powerful leaders cannot do that, self gets in the way. Influential ones can, they look to the interests of others. Abraham Lincoln, himself a victim of an assassins bullet believed that when a people have suffered under a tyrant for a long time, and all legal and peaceful means to oust him have been exhausted, and prospects for his early departure are grim, then people have a right to remove him by drastic means.19
The late President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines was besieged at the Malcanang Palace by a Catholic-led ‘people power’ revolt that his armed forces refused to crush. More recently we witnessed Indonesia’s Suharto felled by widespread discontent. Could we be headed in the same direction? The writing’s on the wall.
We all know that there are leaders in this country today who rely on money and their ability to use it to corrupt the judgement of others, to make headway. That is the essence of a corrupt nation. A nation whose leaders have looted and plundered the electorate, leaving them in abject poverty. How else does one explain close to 50% of Kenyans living below the poverty level?
Part of our problem stems from a partial rather than full adoption of democracy. We must remember that democracy and capitalism are not traditional African concepts. Democracies are supposed to have elected leaders who are subject to the same laws as are the electorate. They can be prosecuted as can be any other citizen who falls foul of the law. In traditional African society the chief was the highest authority, he could not be outdone, his word was final. Normally this would not lead to trouble, the chief had little to gain by perverting justice.
Yet when you mix the traditional African chief model of leadership with democracy and throw the tremendous amounts of wealth that capitalism generates into the brew, then the urge to pervert justice is much higher. In real democracy the final word must always be by consensus (parliament) not the executive. Thus usurping the role of the parliament is a most heinous crime.
This is unfortunately what has happened in numerous African states including our own. A generation of leaders still exist who seem incompatible with democracy and all that goes with it though they cling tenaciously to power thinking themselves influential. Some, having lost their perspective confuse propaganda and name calling with policy.
The same leaders won’t stop to appreciate that maybe 60-80% of their respective country’s population are below 35 years of age and to a greater extent ignore the comical antics of their so-called leaders. Sadly it is this younger generation and their children that will pay the price for the destruction of their inheritance by leaders who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In view of this Kenyans need to be bold enough to tell it as it is. To put aside the tribalism that their leaders parlay, a conflict that is outdated and pointless. Tribalism can only thrive amidst corruption. The two fuel each other. Get rid of corruption and Tribalism can be conquered. But only then and not before .
Currently, politicians are Kenya’s only leadership class. There is a strident anti- intellectualism in government that not only discourages but also prevents original thinking. Consequently, businessmen, financiers, academe, and the news media have been forced into the back seat. We all need to believe in each other if we are to build a country where politics play second fiddle. After all being a politician does not necessarily make one a leader. Leaders lead, politicians talk. Nothing comes from talking but talk, nothing comes from dreaming but dreams, action is necessary.
I’ve often wondered who the leaders of countries like Switzerland or Sweden are? You don’t hear much about them on the world news. Yet these countries have some of the highest standards of living in the world and are among the least corrupt. I’m convinced that in such countries, businessmen feature just as prominently, if not more so than the politicians. In corrupt countries politics is the fastest way to get rich. In Switzerland you’ll get no such chance.
Does that sound unpatriotic. I hope not, its actually because I’m extremely patriotic that I feel compelled to speak as candidly as I am. If Kenyans are unable to express their views on our present predicament then our road to recovery is already handicapped. Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of international trade at Harvard University has written that good government means relative safety from corruption, from breach of contract, from property expropriation, and from bureaucratic inefficiency. On most of these counts our government has failed.
There is corruption even in the so-called model democracies in the West, but three factors
bail them out. Firstly they have working legislation that inhibits theft of public funds. Secondly those who steal from public coffers tend to keep the proceeds in the country preventing the capital-flight that we are gripped by today. Thirdly, their judiciaries have the will, competence and independence to prosecute all offenders.
The reason we find ourselves in dire straits now is because of capital flight over the last score years. Money that should have been banked in Kenya is shoring up economies elsewhere. According to the Minister of Finance, “the government is broke”. Given the lack of transparency in the past it is impossible to tell whether our government is unable to govern because it has no money, or whether it is using the fact that it has no money as an excuse not to govern.
Assuming they are broke, this not only presents a serious economic problem, but a security risk too. Kenyan taxpayers have all the while assumed that their Armed Forces are on a high state of alert and well-prepared for any eventuality. Yet how can this be if the Government has no money. The first risk that arises should the Armed Forces fail for any reason to receive their dues is of a mutiny. God forbid, but they would be hard pressed not to take matters into their own hands as we recently saw in Zaire under the late Mobutu Sese Seko.
The second risk we run is even more sinister. Should Kenya come under attack from a private army or some mercenaries for whatever reasons, would the Armed Forces be able to defend the country? How would they be financed throughout such a crucial event?
Finally, because the press serve as society’s watchdog, they have a duty to investigate the thoughts and feelings of the nation without being overcautious or vague. Pick up a newspaper nowadays and you invariably find editorial writers, columnists, businessmen and even (funnily enough) politicians crying out in a chorus of ‘Leadership! Leadership!’ It is almost as if the ship of state like some doomed ocean liner is about to self-destruct on the icebergs of complacency with the captain nowhere in sight.
When the Kenya Wildlife Service director Dr David Western was recently sacked (only to be reinstated because of pressure from donors) an editorial stated: “Sacking executive after executive not only makes a mockery of job security and professionalism, it speaks of something very fundamentally wrong somewhere very high up”. But it stopped short of saying how high up ‘very high up’ is.20
It would be a welcome thing to see less media coverage of politicians and a greater focus on the opinions of the common man in both urban and rural areas. Let us remember that this country belongs to Kenyans, not the Kenyan government or parliament for that matter. Those are institutions devoted to the governing of the country. It’s ownership rests with it’s citizens and they alone.
The press usually shapes the focus of a nation. If they cast the limelight mainly on politicians and politics then so will the nation, yet we see little progress on that front. If they portray those who may be corrupt in glowing terms then the general public over a period of time may come to see corruption as a positive thing. Using the term ‘the powerful’ to refer to leaders may be a true depiction, but how does Joe Public understand that you were not trying to glamorise him (the leader)?
The press must never tire of fighting for a moral society while maintaining truth and ethics in their reports. If they allow themselves to be impressed by the wealth of corrupt individuals, then society as a whole is bound to lose.
While I have decried the rampant corruption within government, all generalisations are false. There exist, I believe, those who are committed to wiping graft out from within. I do not pretend to be a politician or leader of any kind. There are also those to whom the things I have discussed are bread and butter but what I can say is that now more than ever is the time for courage. Courage that may look misplaced in the face of voices which warn of terror and retribution if we speak up. Courage, for it is the only way forward because to remain silent is to invite more abuse.
“Future generations will ask ‘what did you do to change this?’ The actions we take right now will crystallise. We do not know if this is for better or worse. But one thing is certain. Nothing would be more damaging than to crystallise the current status quo for younger generations”.21
Kenyans have lost faith in talk of freedom and change as words used often but emptied of their meaning; vows made in the storm but forgotten in the calm. I don’t think we have any option other than to face our own demons.
Like the patriarch Jacob (which in Hebrew means ‘the deceiver’) we can no longer escape our past. But if we struggle as he did until daybreak we have the bright hope of creating a new name for ourselves as a land of morally upright people. A country which with the passage of time has the potential to become one of the great nation-states of the earth. A “safari nation” at peace with itself and the world.
POSTSCRIPT.
Since the General election of December 1997, Kenya has had the misfortune of not having a Vice President with speculation flying fast and furious as to what agenda the President is pursuing in not naming one.
Leadership abhors a vacuum. Without a Vice President, should the President become incapacitated we would be faced with a successional dilemma at best. At worst an ensuing power struggle could lead to either anarchy or out and out tyranny. It is an appointment only he can make and must not delay any further.
Besides the inherent dangers posed by having no successor to the President there has been debate as to whether the government in it’s current form is then legally constituted. Legislator James Orengo has on more than one occasion argued that the constitutional requirement for a valid government is the President, Vice President and cabinet. Without an occupied Vice President’s seat, he says the government cannot be legally constituted. Hence the President would be breaking the law by failing to make this appointment.
And on this I will let Thomas Paine have the final word: “All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Government is not a trade which any man or body of men, has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but it is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable”.22
The President (in any nation) is not greater than the nation itself. Neither are his personal interests above the well-being of the country as a whole. I am sure many Kenyans are incensed by this total disregard to their concerns; it is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with their destiny. The President must convince Kenyans that not having a Vice-President is somehow in their best interests.
As matters now stand, he is in breach of the trust placed in him by wananchi, he has failed to uphold his presidential oath, and owes the country both an explanation and an apology. He is in office by our mandate alone. Could it be he feels threatened by his own understudies? Whatever the case, any problems that may arise from this lack of prudence, he must be held directly responsible for.
Endnotes
1. “A World War On Bribery” by James Walsh, Time Magazine June 22,1998.
2. Transparency International is a non-profit making, non-governmental organisation, working to counter corruption both in international business transactions and through their national chapters, at national levels. It’s world corruption ratings are arrived at from a survey of business people, risk analysts and the general public.
Their address is:
Transparency International (T I)
Heylstrasse 33, D-10825 Berlin, Germany
Tel: (49) 30-787 59 08 Fax: (49) 30-787 57 07
E- mail: ti @ contrib.de
Internet: http: // www.is.in-berlin.de/service/ti.html
Chairman: Peter Eigen (Germany)
Managing Director: Jeremy Pope (New Zealand)
Bank Account No. 09 332 145 00
Dresdner Bank Berlin (Bank code 100 800 00)
3. “Contrasts and Connections” Schools History Project Discovering the Past Y7
Colin Shephard, Mike Forbishley, Alan Large, Richard Tames, 1991.
Problems in the Empire p.58,9.
4. Incidentally, our level of taxation stands at higher than that of 32 countries in Africa south of the Sahara. it is also higher than in many countries in the west where a kind of welfare state exists. We also have exceedingly high tax evasion rates. The annual income per Kenyan has fallen from $ 420 in [4][5]1980 to $260 today. The estimated number of Kenyans living below the poverty line has risen from 44% in 1989 to 50% today.
5. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
6. Wall Street Journal, 27th May,1986 and Financial Times, 23rd February,1987.
7. Financial Times, London 14th October,1994.
8. Western traveller,1847.
9. The Daily Nation , Friday April 3,1998.
10. The Daily Nation editorial of Wednesday, May 20,1998.
11. The Daily Nation, Tuesday May 26,1998.
12. “There is no end to what a man can do as long as he doesn’t mind who will get the credit”- Ronald Reagan.
13. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
14. The Daily Nation Thursday April 16, 1998
15. Paraphrased from “Jobs Specs for the Oval Office” By Hedley Donovan Time December 13,1992.
16. Lance Morrow, Time Magazine November 9,1987 “Who’s In Charge?”
17. Veronique Tadjo,
18. Literally ‘tea’ in Swahili but is used euphemistically to mean a bribe.
19. Ernest .W. Lefever, Senior fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington as quoted by Time Magazine December 22, 1997.
20. The Daily Nation editorial Sunday May 24, 1998.
21. paraphrased from Val d’Oiseau, Veronique Tadjo.
22. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
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:What Is Happening to Our Beautiful Country?
“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice”.
James 3:16. (New International Version)
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Kenya is apparently 75% Christian, yet in a 1996 report released by Transparency International, a Berlin-based lobby group, it is ranked as the third most corrupt nation on the face of the planet. Ironic isn’t it? Actually, it is the most corrupt ‘Christian’ nation on earth! In both Nigeria and Pakistan who are ranked first and second respectively, Christians are a minority.
How is it then that our green and pleasant land, has earned itself such infamy?
The credit (if I may call it that) must go to the 74-year-old Mr Daniel arap Moi under whose helmsmanship corruption has become the fastest-growing cottage industry around.
A recent cover story in Time Magazine ran thus: “Strange things have been happening to Kenya’s President Daniel Arap Moi on the way to the piggy bank. In a country famous for it’s game parks and safaris he has found himself in the sights of an elephant gun levelled by international donors who have declared open season on corruption. The conflict centres on $ 400 million in illegal export-incentive payments that Moi’s Government made to a local jewellery maker Goldenberg, supposedly to reimburse taxes paid on imported raw materials. However no taxes had been paid and no hard currency was brought into the country. So the IMF demanded an accounting of the missing money, the equivalent of 6% of Kenya’s annual output. When the Government closed down a private prosecution of the Goldenberg team, the IMF cut off $ 169 million in credit”[1]. A candid, if somewhat less than flattering assessment of how the outside world views us.
It has grown increasingly difficult to discuss corruption with us Kenyans for a variety of reasons. Either we cannot see it touches our lives or we have become so completely bogged down in it as to feign indifference whenever it is mentioned. The truth is, it has affected our lives and well being most profoundly in the last 20 years and will continue to do so unless we change course.
Since the dawn of time, and it is recorded in the earliest annals, the insidious stain of corruption has ravaged mankind. There is evidence in the bible to suggest that the prophet Moses grappled with this vice 4,000 years ago. One famous book that tackles the subject is by Nikolai Gogol (1809-52). In 1836, this one-time Saint Petersburg government clerk published The Government Inspector a satire on the dishonesty of small town officials in Imperial Russia.
The Oxford English Dictionary describes corruption as “perversion or destruction of integrity in the discharge of public duties by bribery or favour”. Transparency International[2] have called it “the use of public power for private profit”. Greed, arrogance, malice, deceit and vengefulness are all it’s hallmarks. To look into corruption is to unveil the darkest secrets and the basest forces of the human soul: It’s real perpetrator is human nature itself.
Rome, the greatest empire the world has known was riddled with it. In A.D. 369, an anonymous writer sent a document to the Emperor Valens. An extract from this treatise read “public grants have made the rich even more extravagant, while the poor are driven by their problems into crime”[3]. The ordinary Roman was by then paying up to one third of his income in taxes and another third in rent. Sound familiar ?4 The Roman Empire’s biggest enemy was itself: The same corruption that fuelled it’s growth being responsible for it’s collapse. In today’s world, various laws and constitutions designed to keep this night of the soul in check have been enacted with varying degrees of success.
There is a pattern in the affairs of nations, a rule of thumb if you will, that always applies:
Wherever you find the rot of corruption has set in, you will invariably find leaders that are not subject to the same accountability as the populace. “When extraordinary powers are vested in any one individual in a government” wrote American revolutionary Thomas Paine in 1792, “rest assured that it will lead to the misappropriation of public funds. This individual becomes the centre round which every kind of corruption generates and forms. Give to any man a million a year and thereto the power of creating and disposing of places, at the expense of a country, and the liberties of that country are no longer secure”.5
The giant sucking sound coming from Africa nowadays is that of money leaving. A recent report allegedly emanating from a Swiss banking source, has estimated the amount held in Swiss banks on behalf of African leaders alone as being in excess of 20 billion U.S. dollars.6 In his 32 years of misrule, the late Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko is estimated to have made away with $ 1 billion. He is a prime example of the so-called Bwana Mkubwa (Big Man) who could not (constitutionally) or would not (by any other means) be held accountable.
Though some of Mobutu’s wealth was amassed as a result of ‘gifts’ he received from western nations in return for keeping communism at bay during the cold war, a large part of it came from foreign aid advanced to his impoverished countrymen. Sese Seko was notoriously unable to distinguish between his country’s coffers and his own pocket. In any case, retired General Olegusun Obasanjo, himself a former Nigerian ruler and who until recently was in detention along with the late Moshood Abiola, has said that: “in the African concept of appreciation and hospitality , a gift is a token ; it is not demanded; the value is in the spirit of the giving, not the material worth. Where a gift is excessive it becomes an embarrassment and is returned”.7
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Mobutu’s despotic regime was what may be termed an ‘imperial presidency’(one that is above the law). In this feudal scheme of things, the natural progression is for those close to ‘the throne’, be they business associates, political allies and friends, etc to develop a limited immunity to prosecution. It is human nature that the lawless will go where there is no law (or where they can get above it) and they will make the rule of the strongest reign8 something akin to the Al Capone era in 1920’s Chicago.
Once there is an obeisance to this ‘law of the jungle’ scenario, overnight you will get billionaires and multimillionaires, born of extensive and underhand dealings, springing up all over the place. What you will also find is bands of parasites living in luxurious indolence out of public taxes. This ruling clique, may claim to hold each other accountable but in reality they manipulate a country to their own ends- their sole aim is to hitch their personal wagons to the state’s gravy train.
A news agency despatch in early April ran: “Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace is set to make 19 million Zimbabwe dollars (U.S 1.18 million dollars) profit from a mansion built with government money, the Financial Gazette said today. The house dubbed “Gracelands” by it’s critics was built in the upmarket Harare suburb of Borrowdale on four hectares overlooking a golf course designed by champion international golfer Nick Price”.9 After 18 years in power, it would seem that Robert Gabriel Mugabe is another good example of an African leader who has outstayed his welcome
The source of corruption then is always the same: a leader or group of them that can no longer be held accountable. And while it may be true that most countries out of necessity have a ruling group; one that has what former US President George Bush termed “the vision thing” (enterprise and ideas for progress); it must have the fear of being overthrown or outvoted, if it is to look beyond it’s own interests.
Lord Acton’s aphorism, “Power corrupts and absolute (read unaccountable) power corrupts absolutely” may be all too familiar with many today. Sadly though, it still holds true. One need only to be honest with themselves, painfully so, to see this adage at play in present-day Kenya.
Kenyans have grown accustomed to the sight of new trunk roads that break up almost before they are completed - the end product of shoddy workmanship and unbridled greed. Roads that are built by contractors; whether local or international; on the precondition that they will give the government officials who have awarded them the tenders a percentage in kickbacks.
Gavin Bennet, a motoring correspondent, put it succinctly: “our cars are on death row the moment they are driven from the showroom”. Driving on our roads he says is like “a daily demolition derby”. If Martians existed they might easily mistake our pothole-strewn motorways for the craters on their own planet.
Indeed, the sorry state of our roads would be laughable if only one didn’t come away with a sinking feeling that they serve as a metaphor for what is happening to the rest our country.
“The name of the game is corruption and the fact is that nobody has had the will to take on the hydra-headed monster previously until now. It is becoming virtually impossible for ordinary Kenyans, for example to get any services or licences from government offices without paying what is normally known as kitu kidogo”.10 This is because as someone pointed out the other day: “the war (on corruption) has been declared for the umpteenth time but not a single battle has been fought”.
Maurice Wangutusi of the accounting firm Coopers and Lybrand made this disquieting observation :“one is tempted to ask where the revenue collected by government goes. It is patently clear that not all of the revenues collected are used to finance the intended projects. Reports issued by the Controller and Auditor-General record this fact. Indeed, Government has itself admitted that the rate of corruption in this country is very high. Most people believe and opine that a substantial part of the ‘tax’ they pay goes to finance corruption and inefficiency”.
He continues; “Corruption feeds on itself, creating a widening spiral of illegal payoffs until ultimately development is undermined and years of progress are reversed. And the very growth that permitted corruption in the past can produce a shift from productive activities to an unproductive struggle for the spoils. Over time corruption becomes entrenched, so that when Governments finally do move to contain it they meet with powerful resistance”.11
Is that not what is going on today in Kenya? Where does this leave us then? We know that the real problem is corruption and that investigating clerks in Nyayo house can only be an idea mooted by the ‘sacred cows’ that benefit from it the most. It’s foolhardy at best. In 1984 by George Orwell, ‘doublethink’ is defined as the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accept both of them.
The Kenya government seems to indulge in it’s own version of ‘doublethink’ by believing it can tackle corruption without starting at the top. Until that is addressed , fighting graft will remain a fleeting illusion- to be pursued but never attained. So how do we set about solving this problem?
The presidency, there and there alone can one begin to tackle this terrible scourge. Simply put, as long as the head of state in any country, whether elected or not, is above the law and by extension above investigation, corruption will always have a palatial home. He is the one who sets the standards for the rest of the nation. Just as a school rarely rises above it’s headmaster (bad administration), neither can a nation rise above an inept President.
As the president or leader of a country one has a great deal of responsibility. Credit for success and criticism for failure. The two go hand in hand. Pity the leader who wants the credit without the criticism. Pity him because he will breed his own enemies.12 To the man in the street what goes on at State House has always been a complete mystery. This has served to build a mystique or an aura of untouchability around the presidency.
If you were the president of a corrupt nation, could you possibly blame corruption on all manner of things apart from yourself? Who would take you seriously? What is the point of occupying the highest office in the land and watching the mushroom cloud of corruption grow without doing anything to stop it? Unless of course one was unaware of what was going on, which would point to an incredibly uninformed leader. One perhaps, who should not be in that stately position. What can be made of leaders who admit to corruption in their governments yet respond with half-baked attempts at exposure?
“Such an individual is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest in the event it should reach to himself. It is always in his interest to defend inferior abuses. So that the parts of the system he has set up will have such a common dependence that it is never expected they will attack each other”.13
When a leader is aware of the fall-out that graft has visited upon his country and does nothing about it, does not his indifference implicate him in the same? What for example can be read into the following statement?: “ The Mosop MP John Sambu (Kanu) told parliament in April that close confidantes of the President were responsible for the economic mess facing the country. He said the leaders were working behind the Head of State’s back to ensure the economy collapsed so that the ills would be blamed on the Head of State. They surround the President and cheer and praise him but the moment he leaves, they draw their knives and start eating the economy”.14
What I can read into it is this: a man is known by the company he organises (keeps). “A crucial ability for the chief executive is perceptiveness. This will bear heavily on the quality of the Presidential appointments and his ability to mould his people into an effective administration. It is not enough to say a President “can hire managers”, as he delegates he must know how to keep track of the delegated work; he must understand what his managers are managing”.15
Even if as the Mosop MP said, the President’s men are responsible, the buck ultimately stops with him for appointing them in the first place. He doesn’t have the luxury of just sitting back and saying this is wrong, that is wrong ...and I can’t do anything about it. He has to act.
“Leadership can be summed up in two words, intelligence and integrity or to use two synonyms competence and character. Integrity denotes an honourable private life. We don’t see those characteristics in government today”.16 One of the reasons the presidency is imbued with it’s powers is to be in a position to nip graft and any other malaise in the bud. If a leader misuses these powers, then of what use is his leadership? A British politician once posed four questions to ask a supposedly powerful leader. “How powerful are you? Who gave you those powers? Who are you accountable to? And finally, how can we get rid of you?” Nobody is indispensable.
Corrupt leaders wield power not influence, never influence, unfortunately most of them can’t tell the difference. The dictionary definition doesn’t help much either since the terms power and influence are often used interchangeably. It would be easier to make a distinction by examining how the two work.
Power invariably works through fear and brute force; coercion, manipulation and intimidation are it’s touchstones. It is fuelled by hush-money, payoffs and bribery. In this hunter-gatherer brand of politics, violence is commonplace, the ‘powerful’ man’s only solution when the rest fail, murder is the culmination. They acquire an appetite for destruction and a taste for blood. Yet power ultimately fails to achieve, in most cases it only destroys the lives of those who wield it, as narrow minded as they are. The same dark fate that overtook Liberia’s Samuel Doe may await all those who persist on this path.
Is power then influence given that in the end others bend to your will? No, but if that were the only yardstick for gauging influence then it would be. Power however, works against the will of the individual, influence does not; power is selfish, influence is not; power seeks glory, influence builds harmony; power divides a country, influence builds it up.
Underneath the facade we have built of peace, love and unity lies a deeply divided country. Nairobi is a place where people dressed like royalty brush shoulders with abandoned street children. Where abject squalor lives side by side with well-manicured lawns and sprawling mansions. One West African novelist could well have been describing Kenya when she wrote “Powerless is also characteristic of the poor, and poverty is personified by the mentally disturbed people who roam the streets, infested with lice, stinking so badly that their stench infests the whole city”.
“The all-pervading stench shows what happens to the ‘wretched of the earth’ affects everybody, of those who exploit the people with detached indifference, violence will force them into such recognition. There will come a time when it will no longer be possible for them to count on their ‘lucky star’. Their fat bank accounts and endless privileges they enjoy will collapse with the rebellion of the downtrodden”.17
I am not one of those advocating the violent redistribution of wealth because I believe that commerce and honest gain is the true means of enriching a country. But what we see in society today is one plunderer succeeding another and that is why we have a small upper class comprising of the superrich; a rapidly diminishing middle class, and an enormous underclass living below the poverty line.
Let’s face it, we’ve leaders with power, not influence. Power that elevates them above contradiction and is leading us down a road marked with exploitation and control. We must not make excuses for them while they continue to go against our understanding of what is right if we are to survive.
Influential leaders are a rare breed on our political landscape today. Influence works through reasoning, consensus, policy, practicality and mutual respect. Influential leaders are those who can sway the masses through sound reasoning, through example. Their integrity precedes them. They will not need to bribe the electorate, or bully the unyielding because their confidence does not come from an ability to rig or buy their way out of difficulty but from their commitment to what is right for the majority. The influential leader will receive a willing response, the powerful leader will have to buy his.
Influence may convert a friend, but power coerces friend and foe alike. Plato, Aristotle, St Thomas, Shakespeare, Galileo, Newton and Kant were men of influence but none of them exercised any noticeable power. Let’s look at some other examples, Mahatma Gandhi, was he powerful or influential?
The man, Jesus of Nazareth, Lord to all who believe, had at his disposal all the powers in the universe, yet how did he choose to work. By brute force or winning people to his ways? What of Martin Luther King Jr, or South Africa’s Bantu Steven Biko and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. What about Uganda’s Archbishop Janani Luwum and Kenya’s very own, Thomas Joseph Mboya, Ronald Ngala, Josiah Mwangi (J.M.) Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, or Robert John Ouko. Did you see power in them or influence?
Out of the ten leaders I’ve mentioned nine were slain, why? Because their murderers being merely powerful lived in constant fear of their integrity. For anyone who may think that power is strength and integrity weakness, allow me to re-calibrate your line of thinking.
Take two men who have the chance to make hefty profits in a business contract. In order to do this though, they have to get round a corrupt government official who irregularly wants a substantial payoff before awarding the deal. One man desists because he refuses to compromise his integrity. The deal is awarded to the one who parts with a little chai.18 Which of the two men’s actions required greater strength? I say the former. He knew that he stood to lose, but still held to his principles.
Powerful leaders cannot do that, self gets in the way. Influential ones can, they look to the interests of others. Abraham Lincoln, himself a victim of an assassins bullet believed that when a people have suffered under a tyrant for a long time, and all legal and peaceful means to oust him have been exhausted, and prospects for his early departure are grim, then people have a right to remove him by drastic means.19
The late President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines was besieged at the Malcanang Palace by a Catholic-led ‘people power’ revolt that his armed forces refused to crush. More recently we witnessed Indonesia’s Suharto felled by widespread discontent. Could we be headed in the same direction? The writing’s on the wall.
We all know that there are leaders in this country today who rely on money and their ability to use it to corrupt the judgement of others, to make headway. That is the essence of a corrupt nation. A nation whose leaders have looted and plundered the electorate, leaving them in abject poverty. How else does one explain close to 50% of Kenyans living below the poverty level?
Part of our problem stems from a partial rather than full adoption of democracy. We must remember that democracy and capitalism are not traditional African concepts. Democracies are supposed to have elected leaders who are subject to the same laws as are the electorate. They can be prosecuted as can be any other citizen who falls foul of the law. In traditional African society the chief was the highest authority, he could not be outdone, his word was final. Normally this would not lead to trouble, the chief had little to gain by perverting justice.
Yet when you mix the traditional African chief model of leadership with democracy and throw the tremendous amounts of wealth that capitalism generates into the brew, then the urge to pervert justice is much higher. In real democracy the final word must always be by consensus (parliament) not the executive. Thus usurping the role of the parliament is a most heinous crime.
This is unfortunately what has happened in numerous African states including our own. A generation of leaders still exist who seem incompatible with democracy and all that goes with it though they cling tenaciously to power thinking themselves influential. Some, having lost their perspective confuse propaganda and name calling with policy.
The same leaders won’t stop to appreciate that maybe 60-80% of their respective country’s population are below 35 years of age and to a greater extent ignore the comical antics of their so-called leaders. Sadly it is this younger generation and their children that will pay the price for the destruction of their inheritance by leaders who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In view of this Kenyans need to be bold enough to tell it as it is. To put aside the tribalism that their leaders parlay, a conflict that is outdated and pointless. Tribalism can only thrive amidst corruption. The two fuel each other. Get rid of corruption and Tribalism can be conquered. But only then and not before .
Currently, politicians are Kenya’s only leadership class. There is a strident anti- intellectualism in government that not only discourages but also prevents original thinking. Consequently, businessmen, financiers, academe, and the news media have been forced into the back seat. We all need to believe in each other if we are to build a country where politics play second fiddle. After all being a politician does not necessarily make one a leader. Leaders lead, politicians talk. Nothing comes from talking but talk, nothing comes from dreaming but dreams, action is necessary.
I’ve often wondered who the leaders of countries like Switzerland or Sweden are? You don’t hear much about them on the world news. Yet these countries have some of the highest standards of living in the world and are among the least corrupt. I’m convinced that in such countries, businessmen feature just as prominently, if not more so than the politicians. In corrupt countries politics is the fastest way to get rich. In Switzerland you’ll get no such chance.
Does that sound unpatriotic. I hope not, its actually because I’m extremely patriotic that I feel compelled to speak as candidly as I am. If Kenyans are unable to express their views on our present predicament then our road to recovery is already handicapped. Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of international trade at Harvard University has written that good government means relative safety from corruption, from breach of contract, from property expropriation, and from bureaucratic inefficiency. On most of these counts our government has failed.
There is corruption even in the so-called model democracies in the West, but three factors
bail them out. Firstly they have working legislation that inhibits theft of public funds. Secondly those who steal from public coffers tend to keep the proceeds in the country preventing the capital-flight that we are gripped by today. Thirdly, their judiciaries have the will, competence and independence to prosecute all offenders.
The reason we find ourselves in dire straits now is because of capital flight over the last score years. Money that should have been banked in Kenya is shoring up economies elsewhere. According to the Minister of Finance, “the government is broke”. Given the lack of transparency in the past it is impossible to tell whether our government is unable to govern because it has no money, or whether it is using the fact that it has no money as an excuse not to govern.
Assuming they are broke, this not only presents a serious economic problem, but a security risk too. Kenyan taxpayers have all the while assumed that their Armed Forces are on a high state of alert and well-prepared for any eventuality. Yet how can this be if the Government has no money. The first risk that arises should the Armed Forces fail for any reason to receive their dues is of a mutiny. God forbid, but they would be hard pressed not to take matters into their own hands as we recently saw in Zaire under the late Mobutu Sese Seko.
The second risk we run is even more sinister. Should Kenya come under attack from a private army or some mercenaries for whatever reasons, would the Armed Forces be able to defend the country? How would they be financed throughout such a crucial event?
Finally, because the press serve as society’s watchdog, they have a duty to investigate the thoughts and feelings of the nation without being overcautious or vague. Pick up a newspaper nowadays and you invariably find editorial writers, columnists, businessmen and even (funnily enough) politicians crying out in a chorus of ‘Leadership! Leadership!’ It is almost as if the ship of state like some doomed ocean liner is about to self-destruct on the icebergs of complacency with the captain nowhere in sight.
When the Kenya Wildlife Service director Dr David Western was recently sacked (only to be reinstated because of pressure from donors) an editorial stated: “Sacking executive after executive not only makes a mockery of job security and professionalism, it speaks of something very fundamentally wrong somewhere very high up”. But it stopped short of saying how high up ‘very high up’ is.20
It would be a welcome thing to see less media coverage of politicians and a greater focus on the opinions of the common man in both urban and rural areas. Let us remember that this country belongs to Kenyans, not the Kenyan government or parliament for that matter. Those are institutions devoted to the governing of the country. It’s ownership rests with it’s citizens and they alone.
The press usually shapes the focus of a nation. If they cast the limelight mainly on politicians and politics then so will the nation, yet we see little progress on that front. If they portray those who may be corrupt in glowing terms then the general public over a period of time may come to see corruption as a positive thing. Using the term ‘the powerful’ to refer to leaders may be a true depiction, but how does Joe Public understand that you were not trying to glamorise him (the leader)?
The press must never tire of fighting for a moral society while maintaining truth and ethics in their reports. If they allow themselves to be impressed by the wealth of corrupt individuals, then society as a whole is bound to lose.
While I have decried the rampant corruption within government, all generalisations are false. There exist, I believe, those who are committed to wiping graft out from within. I do not pretend to be a politician or leader of any kind. There are also those to whom the things I have discussed are bread and butter but what I can say is that now more than ever is the time for courage. Courage that may look misplaced in the face of voices which warn of terror and retribution if we speak up. Courage, for it is the only way forward because to remain silent is to invite more abuse.
“Future generations will ask ‘what did you do to change this?’ The actions we take right now will crystallise. We do not know if this is for better or worse. But one thing is certain. Nothing would be more damaging than to crystallise the current status quo for younger generations”.21
Kenyans have lost faith in talk of freedom and change as words used often but emptied of their meaning; vows made in the storm but forgotten in the calm. I don’t think we have any option other than to face our own demons.
Like the patriarch Jacob (which in Hebrew means ‘the deceiver’) we can no longer escape our past. But if we struggle as he did until daybreak we have the bright hope of creating a new name for ourselves as a land of morally upright people. A country which with the passage of time has the potential to become one of the great nation-states of the earth. A “safari nation” at peace with itself and the world.
POSTSCRIPT.
Since the General election of December 1997, Kenya has had the misfortune of not having a Vice President with speculation flying fast and furious as to what agenda the President is pursuing in not naming one.
Leadership abhors a vacuum. Without a Vice President, should the President become incapacitated we would be faced with a successional dilemma at best. At worst an ensuing power struggle could lead to either anarchy or out and out tyranny. It is an appointment only he can make and must not delay any further.
Besides the inherent dangers posed by having no successor to the President there has been debate as to whether the government in it’s current form is then legally constituted. Legislator James Orengo has on more than one occasion argued that the constitutional requirement for a valid government is the President, Vice President and cabinet. Without an occupied Vice President’s seat, he says the government cannot be legally constituted. Hence the President would be breaking the law by failing to make this appointment.
And on this I will let Thomas Paine have the final word: “All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Government is not a trade which any man or body of men, has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but it is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable”.22
The President (in any nation) is not greater than the nation itself. Neither are his personal interests above the well-being of the country as a whole. I am sure many Kenyans are incensed by this total disregard to their concerns; it is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with their destiny. The President must convince Kenyans that not having a Vice-President is somehow in their best interests.
As matters now stand, he is in breach of the trust placed in him by wananchi, he has failed to uphold his presidential oath, and owes the country both an explanation and an apology. He is in office by our mandate alone. Could it be he feels threatened by his own understudies? Whatever the case, any problems that may arise from this lack of prudence, he must be held directly responsible for.
Endnotes
1. “A World War On Bribery” by James Walsh, Time Magazine June 22,1998.
2. Transparency International is a non-profit making, non-governmental organisation, working to counter corruption both in international business transactions and through their national chapters, at national levels. It’s world corruption ratings are arrived at from a survey of business people, risk analysts and the general public.
Their address is:
Transparency International (T I)
Heylstrasse 33, D-10825 Berlin, Germany
Tel: (49) 30-787 59 08 Fax: (49) 30-787 57 07
E- mail: ti @ contrib.de
Internet: http: // www.is.in-berlin.de/service/ti.html
Chairman: Peter Eigen (Germany)
Managing Director: Jeremy Pope (New Zealand)
Bank Account No. 09 332 145 00
Dresdner Bank Berlin (Bank code 100 800 00)
3. “Contrasts and Connections” Schools History Project Discovering the Past Y7
Colin Shephard, Mike Forbishley, Alan Large, Richard Tames, 1991.
Problems in the Empire p.58,9.
4. Incidentally, our level of taxation stands at higher than that of 32 countries in Africa south of the Sahara. it is also higher than in many countries in the west where a kind of welfare state exists. We also have exceedingly high tax evasion rates. The annual income per Kenyan has fallen from $ 420 in [4][5]1980 to $260 today. The estimated number of Kenyans living below the poverty line has risen from 44% in 1989 to 50% today.
5. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
6. Wall Street Journal, 27th May,1986 and Financial Times, 23rd February,1987.
7. Financial Times, London 14th October,1994.
8. Western traveller,1847.
9. The Daily Nation , Friday April 3,1998.
10. The Daily Nation editorial of Wednesday, May 20,1998.
11. The Daily Nation, Tuesday May 26,1998.
12. “There is no end to what a man can do as long as he doesn’t mind who will get the credit”- Ronald Reagan.
13. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
14. The Daily Nation Thursday April 16, 1998
15. Paraphrased from “Jobs Specs for the Oval Office” By Hedley Donovan Time December 13,1992.
16. Lance Morrow, Time Magazine November 9,1987 “Who’s In Charge?”
17. Veronique Tadjo,
18. Literally ‘tea’ in Swahili but is used euphemistically to mean a bribe.
19. Ernest .W. Lefever, Senior fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington as quoted by Time Magazine December 22, 1997.
20. The Daily Nation editorial Sunday May 24, 1998.
21. paraphrased from Val d’Oiseau, Veronique Tadjo.
22. Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man”,1792.
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