Rio team’s treatment a mirror image of Kenya’s approach to work

When details of mistreatment of our Rio-bound Kenyan Olympic athletes exploded a few days ago, we were again firing from four cylinders on social media. There was righteous anger, and understandably so, complete with calls that all official joyriders and those who mismanaged the trip to Brazil be punished. Now, while we should not condone mistreatment of our world-beating athletes, allow me to go unpopular and submit that it was all a microcosm of Kenya. I mean, look around you. Who in the civil service does not know that those who try to do a good and honest job have to endure snide remarks?

Who does not know the sarcastic and sometimes harsh treatment of those who don’t condone mediocrity and graft, sometimes being posted to God-forsaken dusty outposts with no hardship allowance? Who, the police? State agency officers? Three years ago, we wrote here that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto had a golden chance to start the country out on a new path. As they took office, the challenge was to ensure the presidency would cease to be, in the spirit of the new supreme law, a do-or-die target for tribes.

They could only manage this by stopping an old trend where those whose son lived on the former colonial governor’s house on the hill dominated plum State jobs. They had to ensure even those not in serikali could get any jobs they qualified for and their fair share of the national cake. The power and allure of State House was also toned down somewhat in the 2010 law, after the glimpse into Armageddon that we ruefully got after the 2007 polls. In that hallowed agreement unveiled by President Mwai Kibaki in 2010, the spirit of which should have been imprinted in our hearts, we made a few more bold vows. We agreed that we were going to be a fair, just and meritocratic society where the interests of all, not just the big warring ethnic groups, were to be respected. We came up with a capitalistic arrangement where those with a bone for making ‘em dollars could fulfill their dreams, but tempered the new system with safety nets for the poor and the weak. All we could to ensure that no one died of hunger, treatable diseases and other things that society could collectively take care of.

We resolved, in the words inked in that hallowed document whose preamble even invokes the name of God, to invest more in institutions than in politicians. In that solemn moment in 2010, one would not have imagined that we would ever again justify any political or other national decisions on an agreement between CORD and Jubilee, as we still do in full view of cameras and against the 2010 law. Unfortunately, four years later, I think we have let the camel of our past bad ways get more than its head and neck into our new constitutional tent. First, we failed to kill the past perception that those in Government will always benefit more from State largesse. So as we head to the next polls, the siege mentality and ethnic mobilisation are as alive as ever. And despite the reality of devolution and a formula for sharing the national cake, the dishing out of jobs in the early years of the Jubilee rule failed to put paid to the idea of a just Kenya. Of course I do not support the simplistic, inciting “two tribes” CORD refrain – it is cronies from two tribes, and not entire tribes that benefited - but there you have it!

Now, when people are made to believe it is who they know and not what they can do that matters, thus unhealthy approach percolates to other sectors of society. So, look around you. In most places, those who work hard are never supported. Unproductive people get trappings of power and better benefits, as the productive ones toil like donkeys, sometimes without resources or appreciation. The worst part is that brilliant ideas are choked as those who know people fumble in the driving seats. You saw the mirror image of it all in the Rio team saga.