Kipkalya Kones
@CollinceBey
In the recent posts I have made, I have noticed that the feedback from different sources tends to center on “what about Kibaki?” My understanding is that the relevant commentators feel that my posit on leadership as an elite endeavour may not capture Kibaki as a fine leader because he was raised in want, yet in their view, his Makerere-London School of Economics background should offer him a pass in the finesse realm. I think most of these people consider Kibaki the best of the lot. I disagree mightily.
I have decided to therefore do a brief of what I think of all of Kenya’s five presidents. For starters, I have always held that the biggest job of the presidency is NOT economic growth. The constitution itself, in Article 131(e) describes the President as a symbol of national unity. It doesn’t say symbol of economic prosperity. Neither does it say symbol of bottom up yellow lies. Essentially, the national unity credentials therefore form the biggest parameters to measure a president. For economic prosperity, any president with a competent and efficient civil service can deliver.
Here we go…
- JOMO KENYATTA
Very polished and enlightened, having lived among the British and Europeans. But also a senile, vulgar, land-grabbing tribalist who saw Kenya starting just from Gatundu to his Gicheha Farm in Nakuru. There are are six people Kenyatta should not have betrayed: the Kikuyu, the Luo, Jaramogi Odinga, Tom Mboya and Achieng’ Oneko. These people did so much to help install and sustain him in power.
With a young, fresh nation in 1963, Kenyatta had been given a blank paper to write the country’s destiny to his liking. There were yet no tribal divisions and no grudges. In his hand, we had the chance to create a progressive united nation. But being a petty, greedy dictator, Kenyatta chose to enrich himself, build a tribal hegemony, while pretending to be unaware of the crimes committed by his kinsmen against the rest of Kenyan communities. Because of him, and because of events in the key years 1966, 1969 and 1975, Kenyatta set the country on the path of destruction that it never quite left.
I see only one man as worse than Jomo Kenyatta, so I slot Jomo at 4th.
- DANIEL ARAP MOI
Moi was so incompetent that a Mogotio goat could have run the country better. But we have already seen how the incompetence was in his DNA and his community from creation. To be fair to him, being the one of the five with the least education, he was always going to arrive in power with little in terms of skill, coupled with a sub zero self esteem. This insecurity bred a dictator, with a need to surround himself with kinsmen, who unfortunately were always semi-literate people with a thick Chemolingot accent, whose idea of Kenya was just the land between Barwesa and Mogogosiek. It was a disaster on stilts. It is in the Moi period that people who couldn’t recite a e i o u could become full cabinet ministers. Rest in peace Joseph Lotodo.
But Moi built schools. Everywhere. Using harambees and state resources. Girl schools dominated. Moi Girls this. Moi Girls that. He set the tone for girl child education. Gave rural women a shot at life. Even more, Moi truly loved the nation and preached national unity. Besides, no foreign militia would have sat on an inch of Kenyan soil like they did in North Horr, North Eastern, Migingo and Turkana after Moi left.
There is something else often easily forgotten. Moi opened power to different tribes. People described as very powerful under Moi could be a stellar mix of Moses Mudavadi, Hezekiah Oyugi, Sharrif Nassir, Joseph Kamotho, Julius Sunkuli, William Ntimama, Simeon Nyachae, Elijah Mwangale, Okiki Amayo, Kariuki Chotara, Mulu Mutisya…the lot. Moi’s roads looked like cattle tracks, but power could be tasted by many tribes. Powermen in all the other presidencies came from only one tribe.
For his security and national unity credentials, I slot Moi at number TWO out of five. 1/2
3. MWAI KIBAKI
In December 2002, Kenyans woke up in their millions and gave Kibaki another blank paper to write a new destiny. A hopeful nation held its collective breath. This wheelchair-bound man was the best we had. The mandate was multi-tribal. But Kibaki tore the paper, locked himself behind the high walls of State House and opened the bottle of tribal jini Kenya had closed after Kenyatta. To crown it all, he pretended to be too sick to know that his tribesmen were back riding roughshod on a hopeful nation. The eating came back. The vilification of other tribes returned.
It took Kibaki a mere five years to do what no President had ever done; start a civil war! The policy of exclusion under Kibaki had driven other tribes to look so much forward to removing him that when he stole the 2007 election, war erupted. Kibaki’s presidency has the blood of Kenyans on its hands. Even worse, his tribalism not only took Kenya back to the Kenyatta era, but dug back into some primitive era gone by, because this was an educated man with sound politicies playing games with the aspirations of the nation.
I am tempted to slot him last, but I’ll meet those who admire his economic and infrastructural credentials midway by placing Kibaki at position THREE.
- UHURU KENYATTA
They called him Kamwana, and true to this name, he behaved a lot like a small, petulant child in his first term. In public, he also mostly appeared looking like he had been dragged from the flowerbeds after a night of liver-busting drinking. Not many gave him a chance at succeeding in the presidency. He also always seemed angry and vulgar, a far cry from his aristocratic upbringing.
But in the second term, when Uhuru shed off the baggage on his back planted by his partners from the villages, he did something incredible. He dug into Kenya’s history and discovered that all of the nation’s problems could be attributed to our divisions, especially tribal divisions. The economy wasn’t working because we were not pulling together. Our borders weren’t safe because we were divided. Our politics lacked discipline and sanity because we were stabbing each other in the back. The civil service was weak because of tribal divisions.
So Uhuru went back to the original sin, where his father had betrayed his independence comrades and sought to heal it, no matter the political cost. By backing Raila publicly for President, Uhuru crossed a sociocultural and political line no one had been brave enough to cross. He was doing it for the love of the nation. He was singing the tune of Article 131(e). For the first time, a President had realised that he was a symbol of national unity. Everything else could be healed if the nation’s fault lines healed. But merchants of tribal hate couldn’t fathom to see Uhuru doing this.
For this, I slot Uhuru Kenyatta firmly at number ONE, the best of Kenya’s President.
- WILLIAM RUTO
Ruto has such a huge reservoir of lies, that the entire world’s seven billion people can each draw ten lies from it and still leave enough balance to serve Ruto a lifetime. And that should tell you all you need to know about his presidency. Built on lies, vindictive, cantankerous, incompetent and vain.
There is not much to say about Ruto, other than that being clueless, rudderless and lying like a Yemeni parrot, the only direction we can go with this one is down. When he leaves, he will be the worst of the five. He already is, and there is no chance he will change in the three years left. He is a disgrace to the office.
And that is my report card. 2/2
kibaki let to get 5 more years of power to entrench kikuyu elite agenda upon kenyans. Kibaki is 2nd worst after Uhuru.
