Thought we ended one party state era? Nay, we just moved it to parties

My friend David is one of life’s treasures. He has a knack for truth and insight that I value, and one can always rely on David to provide out-of-the-box thinking even when it goes against everything that he was taught.

For he questions everything, accepting that both he and conventional wisdom could be wrong and then making decisions in a calm, thoughtful way.

For instance, in his youthful drinking days, David was one of the first people I knew that switched to Castle Lager when it was introduced in Kenya. He explained that he thought that Kenya Breweries needed competition to make sure it did not become too arrogant and take customers for granted. He wanted to do his bit to make sure Castle survived.

David was also one of the first people to sign up for Celtel, (now Airtel) in the early days, again because he thought that Safaricom was too big and monopolistic.

Going against the grain is difficult whether on social, economic, political or even personal matters. And yet nothing shows strength of character than standing up for what we believe in.

We all accept that monopolies in business are wrong. Kenya Posts and Telecommunications frustrated us until cellphones and internet rescued us. The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) fits its nickname “Kenyans Please Light Candles.”

So when we can, we all make decisions that give us choices. Thus we opt for generators if we can afford them. We take our kids, if we can afford, to private schools; we use private health care because we know that it is by the grace of God that people survive the public health system.

And we get private security when we can, even if it is not professional or trained, knowing that many in our police force really could not care less if we were harmed as long as they collect their daily cuts.

So with this well-defined instinct for choices, why is it that we seemingly opt for monopolies in politics? Our political parties are basically vehicles that politicians ride to political power that are not much different except for what tribe “owns” which party.

Or as Kiraitu Murungi put it in one of his most memorable turns of phrase, “a party is like mbus. If it is not going where you want, then you get off and take another mbus.”

Thus TNA is seen as the current mbus for the Gikuyu, never mind the fig-leaf of Johnson Sakaja.

URP is the mbus for the Kalenjin, never mind Aden Duale and Ole Kaparo (now a public officer too!) ODM is the Luo mbus, Wiper the Akamba one. The Luhya have two mbuses, Ford Kenya, and UDF.
This seems to be just about the big five tribes alone.

The Kisii, the Somali, the Samburu, the Maasai, the Mijikenda, the Arabs, the Indians, the white Kenyans, the Suba and others are basically fodder to be used by the big five as and when necessary.

But then again, it really isn’t about the big five tribes, is it? It is actually about the five (or six) men who hold almost total control over people linked together accidentally in a tribal identity.

Mark my words: These men are masterful, smart and ruthless: They sell a narrative of victimhood and entitlement to their people, and ruthlessly try to destroy anyone in the tribe who challenges them for leadership and authority, or worse who attempts to challenge this ideology that forms the basis of their power and control.

This is about them — their power, wealth and status — but they are smart enough to make it look as though it is about us. When they disagree and squabble, we suffer.

And this is the paradox of our multi-party politics: While we expanded the parties available, we essentially took the one party state mentality to the parties.

And we allow ourselves to be used, abused and manipulated by a few men (and their sycophants) who are really about themselves rather than “their people.”

[email protected]