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Quite often, Kenyan politicians refer to themselves as “the political class”. Nevertheless, the idea of “class” is attributed to Karl Marx. With regard to Marxian economic theory, R.J. Rummel explains: “In relation to property, there are three great classes of society: the bourgeoisie (who own the means of production such as machinery and factory buildings, and whose source of income is profit), landowners (whose income is rent), and the proletariat (who own their labour and sell it for a wage). Class thus is determined by property, not by income or status.”
Tragically, like many post-colonies, Kenya has a political elite that does not understand that its interests and continued status is dependent on its recognition of the interests it shares with the masses. Such shared interests can be listed in terms of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, namely, physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Yet that elite seems to think that the masses’ needs are limited to the physiological and security ones. No wonder they think that as long as they lower the price of maize meal and a few other “essential goods,” the masses will quickly vote them into power or retain them in it.
The word “elite” evokes the idea of a small group of highly privileged people in a society by virtue of their wealth, political influence, or expertise, among others. Thus, one of the many definitions of the term “elite” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the socially superior part of society”, with synonyms such as “aristocracy”, “best,” or “top”.
According to Encyclopedia.com, “It was the work of two nineteenth-century Italians – Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca – that turned the rather commonplace observation that for much of recorded human history the few have ruled the many into an important contribution to modern political sociology. For Mosca, whose Elementi di scienza politica of 1896 (translated as The Ruling Class in 1939) was the first statement of the theory, the distinguishing mark of the rulers and therefore the explanation for their political dominance over the ruled lay in the rulers’ superior organization. But the dominance so achieved would last only so long as it was exercised in a manner consonant with the values (‘the political formula’) of the society concerned. If it was not so exercised, the élite involved would be replaced sooner or later by another, one that was prepared to rule in accordance with the prevailing values.”
Frantz Fanon’s insight and foresight
One of the greatest theorists and practitioners of decolonization is Frantz Fanon. He was born in Martinique, but eventually threw in his lot with the Algerians in their war of independence against France, availing his skills in logistics, advocacy, and diplomacy to Algeria’s Front de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Front [FLN]). While serving as the Algerian Provisional Government’s Ambassador to Ghana from 1959, he was diagnosed with leukaemia (blood cancer). Nevertheless, in the last ten months of his life, he wrote his most influential book, Les Damnes De La Terre (The Wretched of the Earth). In it, on the basis of the experiences of countries such as those in Latin America that got their independence from Western imperialism before the ones in Africa, Fanon predicted the stagnation and disillusionment that would follow independence on the continent due to the kind of people who would take over political power from the European colonizers.
Citizens of various countries on our continent can easily relate with most, if not all, of what Fanon wrote in the third chapter of The Wretched of the Earth titled “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness”. In it Fanon pointed out that those Africans who went through school and university education during the colonial era, and who form the middle class (“bourgeoisie”), were not equipped to lead the struggle for true liberation. Besides, according to Fanon, nationalist parties during the struggle for independence lacked a clear vision of what a truly independent country looks like: “They mobilize the people with slogans of independence, and for the rest leave it to future events. When such parties are questioned on the economic programme of the state that they are clamouring for, or on the nature of the regime which they propose to install, they are incapable of replying, because, precisely, they are completely ignorant of the economy of their own country.” As a result, such political parties are unable to liberate the economies of their countries from neo-colonial domination, so that these countries remain mere sources of raw materials for industrialized countries. Besides, “The national bourgeoisie organizes centers of rest and relaxation and pleasure resorts to meet the wishes of the Western bourgeoisie. Such activity is given the name of tourism, and for the occasion will be built up as a national industry.”
Fanon further noted that due to the lack of vision in those who took over political power from the Western colonizers, dogfights erupt, as African landowners fight to take over the farms previously owned by the settlers, the middle class fight to take over civil servant jobs previously held by European technocrats, while the artisans and craftsmen start a fight against fellow Africans from other countries. Furthermore, there is the neglect of the rural areas, resulting in uncontrolled urbanization.
The vices of the Kenyan political elite
In a chapter in Governance and Transition Politics in Kenya, Adams Oloo notes that in the 1950s, the British colonizers in Kenya put in place the Swynnerton Plan to create a Kenyan petty middle class that would be allowed to grow cash crops such as coffee, thereby boosting its income and thus convincing it that its interests were the same as those of the European settlers. Whatever the impact of the plan, the Kenyan political elite has exhibited a wide range of vices over the past sixty-two years.
Misappropriation of public resources
The Kenyan political elite has consistently misappropriated public resources, thereby causing the masses to sink deeper and deeper into poverty. Public land has been at the centre of this incessant heist. In my previous article here, I mentioned the Ndung’u Report, which identified the persons to whom land was irregularly or unlawfully allocated from 1963 to 2003, and the officers who facilitated the allocations. According to the report, among those who benefited from such illegalities and irregularities were families of presidents, as well as ministers, members of parliament, judges, civil servants, and military officers. Yet John Kamau points out that land-grabbing began with the acquisitions of the so-called “Z Plots” that were awarded to ministers and civil servants for free or for nominal sums of money. According to Paul Syagga, the Z Plots scam was initiated through Jomo Kenyatta’s order in early 1964 that all colonial farm houses together with the 100 acres surrounding them be reserved for “prominent people,” alongside the poor farmers being settled in the settlement schemes for the landless, financed by British loans.
Moreover, the political elite have frequently engaged in the misappropriation of public funds through the self-awarding of inordinately high salaries and allowances, such as those that parliamentarians are notorious for demanding. Besides, they regularly evade taxes, thereby augmenting the gains of their privileged positions at the expense of the taxpayers who fund those privileges. Thus, on a number of occasions when a new regime has taken power, there have been reports of the taxman demanding unpaid taxes from senior members of the outgoing regime. We first witnessed this in 1978 as Daniel arap Moi took over power from Jomo Kenyatta.
Furthermore, as I have previously pointed out, in Joe Khamisi’s Looters and Grabbers: 54 Years of Corruption and Plunder by the Elite, 1963–2017, we read that since independence until the late 1980s, members of the Kenyan political elite had stashed abroad US$5 billion (KES.518.5 billion), which at that time exceeded Kenya’s foreign debt of US$4 billion (KES.414.8 billion). Moreover, in July 2024, The Star reported that, according to a Special Audit by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, loans that Kenya had taken between 2010 and 2021 had not been adequately accounted for.
There are also numerous instances of the opaque awarding of public tenders and inflated costs of public infrastructure projects to facilitate kickbacks, along with substandard workmanship on such projects to boost “profits”. What is more, in 2019, Wachira Maina chronicled the Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, and Eurobond heists through which the public lost huge amounts of money to politically connected individuals.
Furthermore, in 2012, the Daily Nation reported that according to the Swiss National Bank, Kenyans had stashed away KSh72 billion (818 million Swiss Francs) in Swiss banks. Then in 2015, Business Daily published an article titled “238 Kenyans on list of those with Swiss bank accounts,” which reported: “Kenyans are among international clients whose names are featuring in a trove of secret bank files that reveal how HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped individuals stash billions of dollars in the country.” More recently, investigative journalists exposed the Pandora Papers, which indicated that such loot is also spirited away to offshore accounts in tax havens beyond the gaze of the public.
Frustrating constitutionalism
According to Julius O. Ihonvbere, constitutionalism is the process of developing, presenting, adopting, and utilizing a political contract that defines not only the power relations between political communities and constituencies but also the rights and obligations of citizens. For Ihonvbere, constitutionalism focuses on two issues: first, the process of constitution-making and the extent to which it is popular and democratic; and second, the available openings, institutions, and processes of making the constitution a living document by taking it to the people so that they understand it, claim ownership of it, and use it in the defence of the democratic enterprise.
In his 2015 doctoral thesis, the late G.G. Kariuki chronicled the way in which, prior to political independence in 1963, various factions of the Kenyan political elite fought tooth and nail to influence the draft of the country’s constitution to suit their regional interests rather than those of the country at large. Elsewhere, I chronicled how very soon after independence, Jomo Kenyatta augmented his powers by instituting constitutional amendments to abolish the country’s federalist structure, and also to replace the parliamentary system in which he, as prime minister, was directly accountable to parliament with a presidential system without the checks and balances entailed in the separation of powers.
In mid-1982, Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi, amended the constitution to turn Kenya into a de jure one-party state. In 1986, he declared the ruling party KANU to be supreme over parliament. That year Moi also removed security of tenure for the Attorney General and Auditor General; and in 1988prevailed upon parliament to remove security of tenure for judges. After the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, the Kibaki regime sought to water down several of its provisions, chiefly those pertaining to the powers of the county governments. Citizens have also had to frequently seek the intervention of the courts to annul provisions of legislations that blatantly run counter to the constitution, and in several instances the courts have granted their prayers.
Flaunting wealth and disparaging those who do not have It
Quite often, the political elite shows off its ill-gotten wealth to the poor who are the real source of that wealth. Limousines, helicopters, expensive suits, watches, and belts, lavish parties for constituents, hefty contributions at fund-raising events, and cash handouts at political rallies are among the favourite ways of doing this. More recently, some of them have taken to social media to show off their wealth. Occasionally a politician will even disparage his or her opponent for “having done nothing for himself/herself”. The most memorable instance of this was when Jomo Kenyatta disparaged Bildad Kaggia for doing nothing for himself, in sharp contrast to all the other “Kapenguria Six” who, Kenyatta asserted, had flourishing investments. Regarding that incident, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga wrote in his Not Yet Uhuru:
“Our independence struggle was not meant to enrich a minority. It was to cast off the yoke of colonialism and of poverty. It is not a question of individuals enriching themselves but of achieving national effort to fight poverty in the country as a whole.”
Kenyatta’s cry to Kaggia before a vast crowd at a public meeting, “What have you done for yourself?” is a sign of the depths to which our spirit of national sacrifice for uhuru has sunk. Is there no need for national sacrifice? Has uhuru given the people what they need? The landless don’t think so, nor do the unemployed.
Politicized ethnicity
Elsewhere, I have examined the way in which, from the dawn of independence to date, Kenyan politicians have incessantly spoken against “tribalism” or “negative ethnicity”, all the while relying on their own cultural groups to capture and/or retain political power. In that article I pointed out that this practice has had, and continues to have, a five-pronged negative impact on the management of the country’s public affairs, namely, the gross disparities in economic development along ethno-regional lines, the disproportionately limited economic opportunities for ethnic super-minorities, the stunting of the growth of issue-based politics, the stoking of violent inter-ethnic conflicts, and the vulnerability of highly urbanised persons and/or those born out of mixed marriages with no strong ethnic loyalties. I nevertheless concluded that, contrary to the widely held view that Kenyans ought to abandon their ethnic identities in pursuit of “nation-building”, respect for the right to cultural identity and the promotion of interethnic equity would make political mobilization along ethnic lines less attractive.
Politicized poverty
In my previous article here, I beamed the spotlight on the way in which Kenyan politicians use poverty as stock in their political trade. I illustrated how promises of “development” and the enslaving nature of the charity approach to poverty alleviation have both resulted in the pauperization of politics. Consequently, we effectively have an oligarchy (rule by the rich) in democratic garb, since only the wealthy, or those fronted by the wealthy, can effectively run for political office. What is more, global capitalism sustains this politics of poverty as it pushes “international aid” in the form of grants and loans with conditions that suit the funders rather than the recipients. In that article, I set out with the question: “What would politicians do if everyone had enough food, clothing, and shelter, adequate medical care, high-quality formal education, and a means to sustain all these without grovelling at their feet?”
Misuse of religion
It was Karl Marx who famously declared that religion is the opiate of the masses. According to Saul McLeod, “Karl Marx’s famous phrase captures how religion can act like a drug, comforting people but also dulling their awareness of exploitation.” Happily, there is a vast difference between God and religion, much as Western secularism has now conditioned many into thinking that the two are one and the same.
Kenyan politicians are to be found as much in political rallies as in religious gatherings; and they will ensure that they are present in “important” religious functions such as the “enthronement” of bishops. They contribute large sums to religious institutions, even putting up whole religious buildings “single-handedly”. They relish the annual “National Prayer Breakfast”, where they commit themselves to working for the common good, only to engage in business as usual as soon as the gathering is over. Some of the most ruthless politicians have also been among the most “religious”, bringing to mind Machiavelli’s advice to the politician in The Prince to exhibit both the qualities of the lion and the lamb.
Political assassinations
The Cameroonian scholar, Prof. Achille Mbembe, has described the politics of post-colonies in Africa as “necropolitics”, that is, the politics of death. Decades earlier, the late Kenyan philosophy Prof. H. Odera Oruka, in his Practical Philosophy, had described a typical post-colonial state in Africa under a one-party or military dictatorship as an “African Republic of Inhumanity and Death (ARID)”. Indeed, around the continent, many people, both private citizens and politicians, have lost their lives due to their involvement in political disputations, and Kenya is no exception. The many lives lost in so-called inter-ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley from the dawn of political independence in the early 1960s, during the Kisumu Massacre of 25 October 1969, during the Wagalla Massacre of 10 to 14 February 1984, during numerous public demonstrations including those in favour of the restoration of multipartyism in the early 1990s, those protesting opaque elections from 2007, and those protesting the high cost of living from 2023, among others, are cases in point. Then there are the politicians assassinated from the 1960s, including Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, J.M. Kariuki, Ongili Owiti, and Robert Ouko, among several others. Those who engage in snuffing out their compatriots’ lives because of state power clearly value such power above human life.
Which way forward?
In sum, while the Kenyan political elite flaunts its wealth, it is morally poor, thus the title of this article. In “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness”, Fanon stated:
“In an underdeveloped country, an authentic national middle class ought to consider as its bounden duty to betray the calling fate has marked out for it, and to put itself to school with the people: in other words, to put at the people’s disposal the intellectual and technical capital that it has snatched when going through the colonial universities. But unhappily, we shall see that very often the national middle class does not follow this heroic, positive, fruitful, and just path.”
Yet Fanon was so pessimistic about the political elite of the post-colonies that he wrote:
“In fact, the bourgeois phase in the history of underdeveloped countries is a completely useless phase. When this caste has vanished, devoured by its own contradictions, it will be seen that nothing new has happened since independence was proclaimed, and that everything must be started again from scratch. The changeover will not take place at the level of the structures set up by the bourgeoisie during its reign, since that caste has done nothing more than take over unchanged the legacy of the economy, the thought, and the institutions left by the colonialists.”
