Fight for democracy in Kenya will never be won in Nairobi

Apart from buying things like wheelbarrows at the price of a space ship, the county governments’ scene in Kenya had been, by past standards, fairly quiet in recent months.

Behold, the members of the County Assembly of Nyeri stepped forward to break the “boredom” with a quintessentially Kenyan brawl, pitting ward representatives loyal to Governor Nderitu Gachagua against those supporting a bid to oust him.

These confrontations set a bad example for children and are not good for the image of the country, but we should be more worried if they did not happen.

By many measures, devolution has succeeded in taking a lot more resources to areas outside Nairobi than most people would have imagined.

And there is proof of it in the investment in infrastructure and the fact that corruption in many counties is rife — crooked politicians and officials do not eat air.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY

There is one area, though, where devolution seems to be in deficit. It is in delivering local democracy.

This is important because the national democratic project will not go far without advances in local empowerment.

The demonstrations against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that marked weekly life in the big Kenyan towns earlier in the year, leading to an agreement between the big political actors to disband it, tend to give the impression that people are making democratic claims against the State.

However, historically it has been difficult to be a dictator in the towns, especially Nairobi.

There are many people in Nairobi who would openly defy President Uhuru Kenyatta, savage him in a newspaper column without fear, or take the government to court.

But from the days of the colonial district commissioner, it was always easier to be a dictator upcountry.

In Nairobi, the Inspector-General of Police has the same power as a sergeant in a rural village.

In Nairobi, a lone sergeant walking with a gun in a dark alley could easily be ambushed, killed, and his gun stolen.

In the village, he will stop at every shop and take goods without paying, drop in at the local bar and drink beer without leaving money on the table, and then steal the village headman’s wife, as everyone cowers before him.

PROGRESSIVE POLICIES

The reason that things such as liberal constitutions, progressive policies, and other things cooked up at the centre often do not make for an overall democratic society is that they are easily subverted outside the cities.

That is why, at a more serious level, those embarrassing fights at the counties we have had in Nakuru and places such as Nyeri actually have what you might call “democratic seed”.

A move to impeach a governor, even if engineered by greedy rivals, still gives local communities a taste of democratic blood.

So the problem is not that the MCAs in Nyeri scuffled, it is that we are not seeing more such confrontations in other counties. They only need to refine how they do it.

Democracy is like war. And coming from a country that fought many wars, many generals for the cause get it wrong.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony was the longest-lasting rebel army Uganda ever witnessed.

Unlike other groups, they were illiterate, superstitious, and not the most skilled technically.

One remarkable thing they did, though, and they have continued it in eastern DR Congo and the Central African Republic, is they could really move long distances in a day.

Combining that with unsurpassed brutality, in a short time they could leave a trail of unbelievable savagery over a long distance.

A hundred of them would make it look as if an army of 10,000 had wreaked havoc.

The Ugandan army chased them around until it came up with what, on the face of it, seemed like a terribly inefficient strategy to confront a relatively small group.

It raised “people’s militias” and poured tens of thousands in northern Uganda, effectively occupying every path or bush that the LRA could conceivably use.

In the end, Kony and his men had no footpath to walk. They fled to South Sudan and never returned.

So it is with the battle for democracy. It can never be won by occupying State House and Parliament in Nairobi.

The hard, but most meaningful work, is in the counties and wards. And not all those chaps in the counties who went to Harvard and the University of Manchester.

They will have to do this their way.