Mr President, war on graft is a political matter

The received opinion is that President Uhuru’s war on corruption must not be politicised. I beg to go against the grain.

With the plunder of our national resources now an existential threat, the war on it must be part of our politics... the politics of fighting impunity and its attendant grand theft of our money and property.

Obviously, the proponents of this benighted mantra confuse politicisation for trivialisation.

Politics is a noble pursuit where citizens participate in the affairs of the nation-state. In politics, you get to say how your country should be governed by whom and when.  In politics, you get the chance to name and shame the eating chiefs.

Trivia is what ensues from the mouth of a typical Kenyan politician when he doesn't mean what he says and doesn't say what he means on matters of great importance. 

In politics is embossed the inalienable right of the citizen to have rulers explain their failures to deliver on their social contract with the citizenry. Ours with the government requires of it to deliver social services and security.

Politics is therefore not sterile grandstanding and pretentious talk. 

In the political arena, you point out at social evils. That’s where you name the villain who has grabbed land meant for a cemetery. In that space, you have the opportunity to rave and rant about the veracity, or lack of it, in the talk that some people imported poisonous sugar into the country. Or, whether the Government has any business owning sugar factories when its business record is a study in failure.

One wonders what sort of politicians are President Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and William Ruto whey they tell citizens that the war on graft should not be politicised.

How can it not be when it is a crusade against people who use public office for private gain?

The lords of graft smile all the way to their palaces when the non-politicisation mantra is repeated by people who should know better.

Failure to involve every citizen in this war affords the corrupt an undeserved peace of mind. This is why they can comfortably donate 0.00000000001 per cent of their booty in harambees to ululations. Sadly, it is not beyond possibility that the ululating lot will find the local dispensary bereft of drugs for their sore throats a day after the laudatory noises.

For the anti-corruption crusade to take off, massive political mobilisation is a necessity.  Political mobilisation should imbue the citizen with a sense of efficacy against corruption--- the confidence that they can stop it.

The President must abandon the comfort of the big house on the hill and traverse the country literally inciting Kenyans against corruption.

Mobilisation would entail speaking about the manifestations of corruption, how the eating game is played, who are the beneficiaries and how to resist the plunder of public resources. Indeed, the noblest legacy we expect from him is the socialisation of Kenyans into a political culture of zero-tolerance for graft.  

If I were the president, I would organise the country into anti-corruption cells from the village right to the national level. I would get citizens spying on each other and on civil servants, technocrats and merchants. This way, the corrupt would need eyes on their backs to get away with their nefarious activities.

In not very many words, one is saying that President Uhuru Kenyatta should lead a revolution.  In his Jamhuri Day speech, he asked us to report the corrupt to the requisite institutions. Fine, but that scratches the surface only. He should have urged passengers to whip out their smartphones whenever an officer stops a matatu and record the business that follows.

 The war he has started must not be about his legacy. That will fall in place automatically the moment he transforms Kenyans from a fatalistic lot that condones corruption when not admiring its high priests.

He must invoke the Neo-Marxist credo of underdevelopment and reduce it to the personal level, explaining to Kenyans that, barring laziness, they are poor because what is meant to improve their circumstances is routinely misappropriated or brazenly stolen; that their inability to enjoy quality life is, in a way, linked to the prosperity of  the people who drive around in County Prados and such trappings of power.

The message should not be hard to sink:  The market centre is groaning under heaps garbage because the County health office nabobs have stolen the money to fuel garbage collection tractors.  A thousand analogies could be given.

In his tour of the country, the President could parade road engineers and have them explain to wenyenchi why simple road repairs are out-sourced to sharks who, in turn, hire government earthmovers to do the job making tidy sums.

Lastly, the war on graft cannot be won with clean hands. Centuries ago, Machiavelli observed that a ruler must be both a lion and a fox.

Corruption is fighting back viciously meaning it can only be paid back in its own coin by a lion and a fox. The capacity of the State to enforce compliance is far from being exhausted, which is why it very worrying when we read of disappearing files and computers hours before suspects appear in court.

 A few innocent souls could suffer and we record that as acceptable collateral damage. That's the real politik.

Wambua is an editor on Standard Digital