Second liberation will come after we fully enforce the law

Chinua Achebe reminds us what independence meant to politicians. Like Kenya, all African countries held at bay their age-old ethnic rivalries to kick out the white man. So when the bells of independence rang, everyone thought it was time to stop walking around in tatters, having two meals a week and cowering at everything including your own shadow. It was time to stand tall and have a ball as a free people.

Right? Wrong. The politicians had another card under the table. As the peasants struggled to take their children to school so that they could return and take over the leadership of their country – like the Umuofians in No Longer at Ease – the politicians were busy rummaging in the national purse. One Government official, while on an official trip abroad, writes his name on a bank note and hands it to a girl from his country to impress her.

Again soon after independence, though I was not here, joining the dots tells me the ethnic hatred sown by politicians in the land was artificial. To my way of thinking, those in power surrounded themselves with sycophants whom they convinced it was in the interest of their tribe to defend bendera.

Those not in power rallied their tribes behind them and made it clear that the only way they could survive the post-independence financial turbulence was by taking one of their own to the big house that the exiting colonial governor had left behind.

So the scramble for the big house succeeded only in sowing seeds of discord. So much that even though Wambui rushes to Odhiambo’s wife to ask for some little maize flour when her ugali threatens to become porridge, in an election year the two families are galvanised in inexplicable tension, as if the old chummy spirit they have all along lived in has been snuffed out and a demon of hatred has taken over.

But truth be said, the five-tear cycle of tension and comradeship is all a charade. While wananchi insult one another on behalf of the tribe and the tribal lords, the fact is the nabobs they fight for play golf together, live in exclusive leafy suburbs together, are members of same clubs and always refer to each other as “my brother”.

This charade became clearer to me after the fight for multiparty democracy. True, blood and tears were shed as the price of freedom. Actually, it is solely thanks to the struggle that we have the 2010 Constitution that, for all its shortcomings, promises to deliver an equitable society that guarantees the rights, safety and prosperity of all.

My beef with the political class, including a good number of those in the agitation for multiparty democracy, is that they feel the second liberation has already been achieved, perhaps because they have crossed over from Eastlands to Runda.

Some have changed so much that instead of being showered with praise, their names pop up in all manner of lists of shame. And while it is unfair to begrudge them the honour of having made this here a better country, one is tempted to think they were so bitter about the excesses of the post-independence regimes because they were yet to gain some space at the eating table.

So what am I saying? The second liberation did not come when the fortunes of the saba saba crowd changed and they started playing golf where they were used to inhaling tear gas. No, the second liberation will come when we all start living by the letter and spirit of the 2010 Constitution.

 Let no one fool you that Kenya will be better when so-and-so from this-and-that tribe goes to - or is removed from - power. With devolution, equity in distribution of resources is guaranteed and no one can bend that rule without a good fight.

True, we still have challenges especially with our tendency to make appointments only from among our cronies and mostly from the communities the leaders come from. But that too can be surmounted with time.

Actually, nothing promises the kind of Kenya a conscientious person would love to see better than the 2010 Constitution. It is what could take us to the proverbial Canaan, not insults on social media and funerals!