Beware the butchery of Kenyan democracy

They say one can only sit on the fence for so long without hurting. Senator Johnson Sakaja’s days must be long and troublesome as he digs through piles of political strategies to find one that could bring some longevity to his political career. When President Uhuru Kenyatta abolished the Nairobi County governor’s position and introduced new powerful players into the race as we gear up for 2022 elections, this put in question the senator’s own gubernatorial ambitions.

Meanwhile, while the Nairobi Senate position is now seemingly redundant, residents are about to witness a strange military-political fusion, thanks to the newly appointed Director-General of Nairobi Metropolitan Services, Major-General Mohamed Badi Ali.

Considering the recent ceremonial events, complete with the formation of the ‘new’ institution to sanitise the butchering of democracy, one cannot really tell black from white. Around mid-December 2012, the Kenyan government under the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development launched a project dubbed Nairobi Metropolitan Services Improvement Project (NaMSIP). This was the genesis of a series of developmental projects that were intended to affect the Nairobi Metropolitan Region (NMR), which covers Nairobi, Kiambu, Machakos, Kajiado and Murang’a. The projects were heavily sponsored by the World Bank and were set for completion on March 31, 2020. On March 18, 2020 Kenyans were informed that President Uhuru Kenyatta had created the office of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services. With the Nairobi governor bullied into redundancy, the Kiambu Governor impeached and quickly succeeded by his rival deputy and the BBI drums beating, one is left to wonder what the grand plan looks like.

Kenyans must wake up to the drifting power of their one-man one-vote right. While exiled Miguna Miguna might appear to be drastically falling into a never-ending rabbit-hole with his repetitive rants about despots, I urge Kenyans to pay attention to the details of his message. Calling him crazy makes it easier to dismiss the things we do not understand, as opposed to trying to decipher how to save ourselves and our country from the ropes of selfish political theatre. More than 800,000 Kenyans queued to exercise their democratic right to vote Governor Sonko into office, yet a handful of Kenyan elites were involved in selecting the newly appointed leader now  in charge of running Nairobi County. With this as a precedent, Kenyans who believe in devolution should be wary of the future of our counties, starting with those that fall under the Nairobi Metropolitan Region (NMR).

The fight to protect democracy begins with empowering our citizens with information on their civic duties and rights. We lost the battle of politics for development the moment we ended civic sensitisation forums on current affairs. It is a shame that our intelligent aspiring youthful politicians are buying into this old-school politics of baseless public engagements and rallies, all in the hope of gaining popularity from uninformed Kenyans.

May the coronavirus scare finally jolt us to act against these regressive and divisive political stunts. 

Gloria Orwoba-Bjerring is the country coordinator, Global Youth Parliament. [email protected]