Kenya, What Went Wrong? Bad Leadership Signs
"There has been a failure of leadership because at certain levels they should have anticipated some of the events. The signals have been around for a long time" Koffi Annan talking in Kenya on February 7th, 08
What did go wrong in Kenyan last presidential elections? Also, why is it that the International Community took so long to tackle the boiling situation in this country? It took more than a month for the Security Council to table the situation in Kenya. The African Union was diligent to come to the rescue but only to be mudded and to turn away because it lacks means for constraining its members. By contrast, the contested President Mwai Kibaki did not feel uncomfortable to go and speak at the African Union annual summit when he is accused of massively and systematically rigging elections. IN Nairobi, he was not able to be sworn it in a dignified way: he was sworn nightly without any invited president or representative of foreign commissions in his country. Surprising, isnt' it?
It took one man or two or three to turn ups and down a country considered as leader in Eastern Africa. Let us name them: Kibaki, Odinga and Kivuithu. Kibaki could have not been elected four years ago without the support and devotement of Raila Odinga whom he failed after being in power. He refused to support a new Constitution which could reflect and address the new stakes the country was facing: corruption, abuse of power, just political and economic reform. Instead of reforming the system, he surrounded himself with people and friends notorious in corruption and political loosers. He created Ministries which did not have offices and whose holders complained to be paid for reading newspapers all day! For someone who was elected against the backdrop of corruption, he spent millions of dollars for his ministers BMW. His wife was slapping high profile officials at public functions.
It did not take long for Raila Odinga to start denouncing the decline in which Kibaki was putting the country into. 72 years old, Kibaki is convinced that he is still able to dynamize Kenya. Even Arap Moi, the former President, funded Kibaki's campaign in 2007? Amazing! Isn't it?
What went wrong in Kenya? That is the question.
What went wrong in Kenya can be summed by bad leadership, bad governance and poverty.
It is bad leadership which made Jomo Kenyatta to favour his ethnic group instead of building the country on meritocracy.
It is bad leadership which made Moi to build a nation on corruption, named in swahili "kitu kidogo".
It is bad leadership which made Kibaki to sit back while his friends and Ministers were looting the country known as Anglo-Leasing scandal.
It is bad leadership which made Odinga to not anticipate the signals of what has happened after elections in kenya.
And we know it, bad leadership has its corollaries: bad governance and corruption. This two have fuelled the flame of intolerance and tribalism after the last elections. So we don't have to blame the population for killing each other. Poverty has blinded their judgements and it was the leaders' role to create wealth in the country and to distribute it in a just way.
Kenya has lacked distributive justice since its independence from the British rule. The Fertile lands belong to a small number. This creates frustrations, anger and ressentiment.
Koffi Annan is right. The signals for an implosive situation were there long time ago. Now, every leader is using them to make the country infernal. Let's not blame the ordinary citizens for not being able to live together with each others. We know that they are able to, when the minimum is granted. This basic human minimum is food, shelter and free primary education for kids.
Every human being, when put in a situation where basic Human needs are not met, become automatically a wolf for another one. Kenyan people are not savage. Politicians have put them in this situation, and a new leader has to come to rescue them.
Published: February 15, 2008