MONDAY, JULY 28, 2014

The discredited old order still calling the shots in too many parts of Kenya

Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa speaks at his office in Mombasa in this photo taken on July 11, 2014. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION

Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa. Cord leaders have told the county commissioner to stop politicising security matters as it could spark tribal animosity. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION 

In Summary

  • This was the system by which a provincial commissioner, Yusuf Haji, could order a hapless local trader jailed for refusing to give him a ride in his car.
  • Retired President Moi could tell many tales of the travails he suffered at the hands of a dictatorial provincial administration regime in the Rift Valley during the period he served as President Jomo Kenyatta's vice-president.
  • The regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto seems keen to recreate the all-powerful central machinery last seen in all its glory during the Kanu era.
By MACHARIA GAITHO
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In the days of yore, the government ran Kenya through indirect rule, employing an army of village tyrants, starting with headmen at the lowest level on to provincial commissioners at the apex.

The system of chiefs, district officers, district commissioners and so on, was generally known as the Provincial Administration, and was regarded as the President's eyes and ears at the grassroots.

This was the system by which a provincial commissioner, Yusuf Haji, could order a hapless local trader jailed for refusing to give him a ride in his car.

It was under this system that a district officer, Fred Mwango, could have a schoolteacher forcibly shaved in public with a blunt instrument for daring to appear at a function in a hirsute state.

This was the system in which a succession of DCs and PCs became powerful and extremely wealthy demi-gods during the one-party dictatorship by exploiting high office to grab public land and institutions, convert State assets to private ownership, and harass, intimidate and even eliminate those who questioned their excesses.

Retired President Moi could tell many tales of the travails he suffered at the hands of a dictatorial provincial administration regime in the Rift Valley during the period he served as President Jomo Kenyatta's vice-president.

His successor at State House, Mwai Kibaki, might tell similar tales of harassment during his tenure as Mr Moi's vice-president.

And then there were all those ministers and permanent secretaries in charge of the provincial and national security dockets who became wealthy and powerful in their own right because they were the President's links to the colonial-era liwalis at the grassroots.

One of the most powerful arguments for the new Constitution was the need to dismantle the provincial administration inherited from the colonial occupiers and replace it with a modern, democratic, representative and responsive system of governance.

AGENT OF OTHER FORCES

Devolution was not just about creating elected governors full of pomposity and airs, but about replacing a repressive system based on a colonial army of occupation theory, with one in which the people have a direct stake.

It would be an understatement to suggest that we succeeded only in replacing one set of village tyrants with another.

However, the shortcomings of devolved government must not be used as an excuse for the National Government to recreate the old order through the fellows now baptised as regional and county commissioners.

Instead of a transitory arrangement while the elected county governments put in place effective administrative structures, the National Government has opted to retain the same old discredited system to ride roughshod over the new order.

The regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto seems keen to recreate the all-powerful central machinery last seen in all its glory during the Kanu era.

This is a system that spawns at the local level, arrogant and powerful individuals who will operate with utter impunity because they know they are answerable, not to the laws and the Constitution, not to any specific structures and institutions of governance, but directly to the President.

In the past, we had in the Provincial Administration the likes of the aforesaid Haji and Mwango, but also the likes of Eliud Mahihu and Isaiah Mathenge. We also had political kingpins, at the local level; the likes of Kariuki Chotara, Shariff Nassir, Wilson Leitich, Mulu Mutisya, Mburu Gichua et al, created and primed essentially as agents of the dictatorial regime in their respective fiefdoms.

Such fellows from both the administration and political sphere are hard to come by these days. In a liberal political dispensation and constitutional order, they have largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

There is one, however, still living and breathing and trying his best to emerge as an embodiment of the political and administrative tyrants of old: Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa.

With his outspoken interventions, Mr Marwa is clearly exploiting serious security issues at the Coast to wage political war on the local leadership. Given that he has no direct stake in Mombasa politics, he is obviously an agent of other forces.

mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com

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