Taming the beast – why there's need for new clan system

Garre Council of Elders address the press at Banisa on August, 24, 2016. The elders themselves should be held to the highest standards lest they, too, mishandle their responsibilities. PHOTO | MANASE OTSIALO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Arguments have been made, which, respectably, do hold some water.

  • Officials who were blessed by the clan know that they are handling the resources of their people, and due to loyalty, will be more scrupulous in the dispensation of the wealth they control.

  • I for one do not buy this.

  • The beast that is the foreign incompatible system has been tamed and tethered without a doubt, and commendably too, but the fruits of our bold enterprise might go to waste without a much needed critical and intellectual awakening.

I once happened upon a campaign rally by our Member of Parliament (MP) when I was 14. It was his fourth re-election bid. A few hundred of us were gathered across the road from the post office. The MP, a middle-aged man, stood on a Land Rover hood, holding a long stick to aid him when he needed to emphasise a point. A local man with a very rude nickname sat on the upper deck of the vehicle repeating certain points aloud. The crowd was a mix of both sexes and all age groups. Several of them carried posters in support of the MP and a few even waved slogans denigrating his opponent, calling him a thief who, not content with the harm he had inflicted on the public in his previous job (He had held a senior government job in our district.) was now aiming to cause further damage as an MP.

The rally itself was like any other one would come across on those days; the usual chants and all. There was, however, a remarkably memorable line in the MP’s speech. “It has been claimed,” he said, “that I have stolen funds sent by Kenya to fix the roads. Well, let me be frank with you. I did not steal the funds alone. I stole it along with Uncle K.” The crowd, unsurprisingly, cheered and applauded. That remark, like all the known facts of corruption, did not hurt the MP. He pretty much confessed to a crime in public and not only got applauded, but got re-elected by a landslide. This was how we dealt with the system that was imposed on us, the Western-taught democracy. We just could not care less. The MP had a clan, and within that a sub-clan, and a sub-sub-clan, who would always vote for him. He also was able to buy votes from the elders of rival sub-clans, and each elder represented a substantial block of votes. It was the same story in every constituency in northern Kenya. Ours is right on the border with Somalia, and although we are in Kenya (the borders having crossed us back in 1963 when Kenya got independence) we still have not gotten into the habit of calling our dry, dusty land Kenya to this day. There is Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and then there is just us. On the rare occasion that one of the towns in the districts receives enough rain to turn green, one could be caught saying, “Did you see Takaba? It’s as green as Kenya”.

When an electorate of mostly poor people not only re-elect an unrepentant thief but applaud his confession, it becomes evident that something mysteriously sinister is at work. Once a local man divorced his wife because she had voted for the wrong candidate. Similar stories abound, like a colourful one about a gentleman who shaved his head clean as a sign of humility and went to a recently re-elected MP to apologise for not having supported him. The years between elections meant that certain clans and sub-clans would be viewing each other with suspicion, and sometimes this turned into outright hostility that meant displacement of people and livestock. The younger and more educated locals blamed clannism as the chief cause of the people’s suffering and vulnerability. My father said it was the foreign beast that was the British system. The culprit, I submit, was not the people, nor the system, but the local culture’s incompatibility with the foreign system through which they must interact with the ruling order for a chance at a piece of their country’s wealth.

COUNTRY'S RESOURCES

Today, thanks to the current constitution, the people of Mandera no longer feel that far away from their country’s resources. It is a new age. In trying to ensure that the ills of the past do not revisit the people, the Garre clan, being the majority in the county, drafted a charter five years ago. A council of elders were given the power to decide who becomes governor, senator, MP, and so on. In 2013, a time when everyone was naïve and excited about the system, and with the simple goal of ensuring the clan’s political survival, the elders picked a select group of leaders to run our affairs until the next election came. All of the seats were divided equally among the four main Garre sub-clans. This meant that most of these selected folk would get their seats unopposed. By drafting such a system, the community not only embraced their indomitable clannism but also used it to tame the beast, the latter being the greatest achievement of this arrangement so far. The seats, according to the charter, will rotate between the four sub-clans every five years. This at once eliminates intra-clan competition and all of the bad blood that follows.

Being the third highest-funded county in the country, we have the chance to end poverty, fix health services, build infrastructure, improve education, end genital mutilation of young girls, empower our female folk, revive our near dead wild life, and, finally, wipe away those tears of neglect and abuse that have pooled in our eyes since independence. There are, however, several shortcomings to this most optimistic arrangement that the locals will have to address. For instance, when an individual gets picked by the elders for a particular office, say, governorship, he or she embarks on his duties knowing that he will be removed in the next cycle, whether or not he does well. Arguments have been made, which, respectably, do hold some water. Officials who were blessed by the clan know that they are handling the resources of their people, and due to loyalty, will be more scrupulous in the dispensation of the wealth they control. I for one do not buy this.

The new system will have to create a means of holding the officials to account. In other words, there has to be a local disciplinary authority to be afraid of – one that has the power to effect real punishments in the event of official misconduct. The council of elders themselves will have to be held to the highest standards lest they, too, mishandle their responsibilities. The role of women in this remains unclear. Save for the Woman Representative seat, not a single woman has been picked for the seats held traditionally by men. Misogyny, both in public and private, abounds throughout the county. Sadly, the clan leadership is still out of touch with the times. Unless we begin to have serious conversations about women and whether or not long-held misogynistic dogma should have a place in the county’s future and decision-making, our euphoria might end in disappointment.

The beast that is the foreign incompatible system has been tamed and tethered without a doubt, and commendably too, but the fruits of our bold enterprise might go to waste without a much needed critical and intellectual awakening.

Abdul Adan is a short story writer from Mandera. He is a frequent contributor to 'Kwani?'. His short story 'The Lifebloom Gift' was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2016.