On a cloud lined Monday morning,
with a heavy mist hanging low I walked into an old office, a little, cramped
space. The office had nothing more than a very old mahogany table, old tables
and a rusting metallic drawer. An empty, dusty little box sits besides the file
cabinet with a bold label on the side-Books.
When I walked into the office I
was confused, trying to fit the man and the space he occupies-the office in the
corner, the big talk he gave us every day at the local pub. It was all a show.
Sitting before me, with the open lie now between us, the man did not know how
to behave.
‘welcome welcome…you have come eh?’ he rubbed
his hands- anxious, fidgety his eyes darted from me to the chair and to the rug
lying on the file cabinet and with one quick dash he took it and dusted a chair
for me.
‘Sit, sit…welcome…. don’t worry,
these government offices… they will fix it’
He looks down as if trying to
hide from the lie that he lives. I was both amazed by the length one could go
to hide a lie, an apparent attempt by a senior county officer to match his
status with the lie before a young man as me became a source of curious joy.
The man tried on different personalities like a rapidly color changing species
of a chameleon, he smiled, guffawed, creased his brow with a serious frown and
adopted an impatient tone.
I sat down trying hard to hide
the shock, curiosity, and the disgust that it finally turned to. If he had the
means the old hog before me would have dismissed me from the pathetic life he
lived- the county lies. But he thinks I should be tamed by subtle lies and
promises for a better tomorrow.
The old man before me is an old
relic from the old regime. That long gone age when we had mzee in leadership;
around the last time the sun died and people had waited for the mzee to explain
it to them. He was, even then, a working man, married with kids growing up. And
40 years later 2013- the year the sun died again the old man in his present
state of “dementia senilis” was a rebranded, repackaged civil servant, the sorts
that stay so long in service and let their grand children die from job-seeking
stress.
Do you feel short changed?
I do. Like so many others I though
with devolution things will change; we will have equal representation, equal
resource distribution, accountability, transparency, justice, timely service
delivery and opportunities for everyone. But across the Kenyan state we are
getting more than we bargained for, least in the positive.
The national recycle
bin
The Kenyan devolution has brought
blessings to the worms in the Kenyan belly and in each county retired men from
previously failed regimes have been resurrected from prosaic wastage to
spearhead the dream of the new Kenya. New posts are created and new office
spaces sought, and the office it gave the man before me is an old store in a 55
year old building. The very space and face of oppression is now the vision of
power in people’s hand. For 50 years those doors had been locked and no one
ventured beyond the rusty lock on the door. On the wall is a 1962 calendar with
a picture of a beautiful deer, next to it sits a 2011 calendar with its some
its months having a scribbles above it; Months in 2013. The ingenuity of a
recycled mind had made a calendar of the past to be a present with dreams and
an assured claim on tomorrow.
When devolution came it was popularly
ran on the slogan of a digital team that sought to replace the analogue generation;
the scorn of the ‘haves’ of the scientific age, globalized sons of Kenya on the
‘have not’ generation Kenyans. The ‘team digital’ confirmed the marginalization
of the majority-analogue which in this context passes as a synonym for the poor
and the semi-literate; those without access to any of the digitalized
scientific faculties of iphone applications and without the technical capacity
to comprehend visualized data. The
entrenchment of an elitist thesis on the common locals who watched Uhuru with profound
awe, as a son of a former president confirmed to the world that a Kenyan
version of ‘Obama’ was here- copy pasted mannerisms, elegance and style-shirt
sleeves rolled with youthful robust. This was new in Kenya; the theatrics of
youthful presidential aspirant inspired dreams in the delinquent youth and with
innocent candor we listened as Kenya was unlatched into a new era of freedom on
our TV screens. What we missed in oversight was posted on face book pages and other
funnier clips found its way on you tube. The digital team confirmed the decree
of our erstwhile African Big Brother now turned a grumpy African elder-KANU
would lead for 100 years.
And because of the naivety rife
in the Kenyan (African) landscape, we forgot the frivolities of the yesteryears,
where the analogue elder ruled- our digital visited the grumpy elder for advice
or was Moi the analogue rogue of the wasted Kenyan holding on to the digital
team of the 21st Century Kenya? As some of our youth raped goats and
molested chicken, our wealth was divided. All before our eyes because even in
campus the bug of vogue optimism was biting, in a little room I joined my
roommates and neighbors waiting for the epic judgment to be passed by the
studded chief justice.
What we lacked in reality, the
digital team made up in nationwide dreams and the digital generation was good
at embracing the resultant virtual reality. The very idea of being Digital was
a reason enough for us to rally around the young prototypes of the new breed of
African leaders.
Our fascination with emergent
novelties whet our development appetites) i.e. Oil in Turkana, the biggest wind
power project in Africa, large underground water aquifers, severing links with
the western neo-colonialists, going East or defying the entrenched social
orthodoxy of holding on and waiting for the bad to change to good. All this
promised an unprecedented potential for Kenya. I felt like a “Kenyan”, the
critics in us overnight camouflaged into patriots, patriots borne by hope, by
pride- the pride that Kenya and its beauty and new dreams instilled in its sons
sent their expectations so high and now that reality has struck us in the face
we have become doubters, and we can never trust ourselves with pride again, knowing
that it bears, within its five letters both life and death.
Deception rearing its
head
Robbing the true custodians of
their right to implement the new dream, team digital and its governors are
employing generation analogue and paying them with NGO level PERKS and PER
DIEMS. New posts are created and filled by relatives, clansmen, bigots,
incompetency, recycled minds, colonial guards. That was why I was disgusted by
the old things heading the process of change in the Kenyan devolution process.
Across the country you will not avoid feeling short changed, cheated and
robbed. The new era of governors it is unlimited the extent they can go to (one
even slapped a public officer in a public office) what more do you expect?
Isn’t that totalitarian enough?
Like a child learning to speak,
the old man before me was babbling words, picking up new vocabulary;
transition, devolution, first quarter, vision, democracy, constitutionalism.
Yes that too. Internet. Connection. Email. The Kenyan child trying to speak the
devolution language is overgrown and retarded. It has been living in that stage
of growth for far too long and is still learning language when it ought to be
expressing its ideas and solving other bigger problems. The nation builders without
a solid foundation are still building; we do not know what floor of the many
dreams storied building.
Teething problems? Nay!
‘We are undergoing change; it is
phenomenal what Kenya is embarking on’ that’s how we lie to our selves, that
every major stage of development is preceded by myriad challenges. We have been
here before!!
Yes we will pick up faster than
many African economies. Kenya the land of safaris and hospitable people, the
hope that came with devolution is dashed, stubbed to death by new spates of
ethnic wars- Tana, Bura, Baragoi, Moyale, west gate, by new VAT tax imposed on
basic commodities-milk, by the oil prices going up and the budget of running
the county being just too much. We are starting on a wrong footing- we have
devolved corruption, devolved nepotism, devolved ethnicity, devolved
incompetency, and devolved everything that we need to avoid.
Claiming the second
decade
Devolution is our claim on the 2nd
decade of the 21st century. It is severing links with the past. It
is spearheading the vision of the new Africa. It should not be a rebirth of the
old Africa. It should not be the regurgitation of old solutions. It should not
be about recycling worn out stereotypes. It should not be deceit. It should be
about reform, it should be about accountability, about transparency, about
timely justice. Not about additional taxes or squeezing wanjiku dry.
And in certain quarters people
are even more afraid of dying because dying will mean another taxation burden
to those left behind. A brother can’t slaughter his chicken and enjoy it
without someone thinking of snatching that enjoyment by imposing a tax on the
chicken’s neck and the knife that slaughters it…where are we headed? Honestly
this is more than we had bargained for.
Disgruntled
I sit across from the old man in
this county office and try hard to feel like a hopeful youth in Kenya. Trying
hard not to believe that we should be on different sides of the table- He on my side and me on his chair. Waking up
every morning not knowing what to do, every day I try hard not break from the
pressure. Walking dejectedly from one office to the other and never losing the
enthusiasm of applying to long-ago filled vacancies. Hoping that none qualified
is openly denied a chance to work.
