When coronavirus stopped BBI reggae

The Raila Odinga-Uhuru Kenyatta political ship has got into stormy waters. Its tempo suffered a major disruption from the first report of a positive coronavirus case in Kenya on March 13, 2020.

Adding to the Covid-19 related complications for the duo is the newly resumed internal power struggle in the ruling Jubilee Party. The way ahead looks rocky and messy. It promises to give the two Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) captains their biggest leadership test yet.

Ahead of all this, the BBI campaigns were on the home stretch, with the refrain of “Nobody can stop reggae.” The BBI’s campaign jamborees that began in Kisii on 10 January were headed for Nakuru’s Afraha Stadium on March 21, having rattled Kakamega, Mombasa, Garissa, Kitui, Narok and Meru. Then, suddenly, coronavirus struck. The BBI reggae came to a dagger-point slowdown, calling the lie to the thought that nobody could stop the music.

Whatever the bigger BBI agenda was, the music died on March 13. It is not likely that it could be resurrected. The demise of the music has thrown into a shambles the BBI and both sides of the political divide around it. But the coronavirus has especially come to complicate the political terrain for President Kenyatta and the ODM leader, in many ways. Leadership guru John C Maxwell talks of “the Law of Momentum,” in his The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

The first thing that the virus did to BBI was to disturb its momentum. The excitement that the rallies were generating will need a fresh build up, if they ever come back. Their return, anytime in the near future, is challenged by Covid-19’s dictates on social distancing, a reality that is likely to stay on, long after the triggers are gone. Revived rallies will also call for fresh financial resourcing, planning and management of logistics.

Reorganisation of Jubilee

Resumed rallies, moreover, must contend with the dilemma of competition of priorities and appropriateness in the public eye. Last week the Jubilee Party restored its political activities, beginning with contestation over a notice of change of the composition of the party’s National Management Committee (NMC). The NMC is the executive arm of the party, charged with the day-to-day organisation and running of party programmes and agenda. Its reconstitution is expected to lift the lid on further far-reaching changes.

It increasingly looks like reorganisation of Jubilee branch leadership and the national delegates lists could be in the offing, with a view to a bigger hidden agenda. The objective seems to be, to use the party to derail Deputy President William Ruto, probably through expulsion, to be ratified by the national delegates conference. If that happens, then he automatically loses his position as Deputy President. That should give Uhuru the opportunity to appoint a new deputy president, who will then be ratified by Parliament. The President could also make other significant appointments, bringing in the ODM team.

It is not going to be that easy, however. That the Gazette Notice has led to instant protest by a section of the party led by the Deputy President, shows just how far apart Kieleweke and Tangatanga factions have drifted. The silence that has obtained during the first month of the coronavirus in Kenya has only been the lull in the middle of a vexed Jubilee storm that began with the March 9 handshake between Uhuru and Raila.

Already, 149 Jubilee legislators are said to be protectively rallying around the Deputy President. An ugly political fight that could leave behind untold casualties seems to be imminent.

Politics or covid-19

The March 9 handshake was the mother of the BBI, that claims to seek national unity through a nine-point agenda. As the political thunderstorm around it in Jubilee returns, it is expected that the ODM Party will be roped in, starring beside Kieleweke.

Yet, even as the protagonists prepare to engage, they will have to balance delicately between their political interests and warfare on the one hand and public priorities and pieties on the other hand. Throughout the world, today, the war against Covid-19 is the topmost concern on most governments’ priority lists. Ever increasing numbers of countries have come under one form of lockdown or the other, with many extending the initial timelines.

Political posturing and competition has been forgotten for the time being. Kenya’s early return to caustic political business, therefore, is likely to reflect a poor sense of balance between political self-interest and public interest, on the part of the country’s topmost leadership.

The competition between public interest and self-focused political posturing in the country will also target a measly public finance base. Already, President Kenyatta has set up the Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund to address humanitarian challenges that the virus is dragging the country through.

Thousands of Kenyans have suddenly found themselves in unstable working circumstances, while others are outright out of employment and earnings. The country is sinking into the fear of uncertain times ahead. The fears gravitate between catching the virus and financial survival. There are questions of food, rents and regular medication – away from the coronavirus challenge. The politics will be competing against these basic needs, placing the protagonists in awkward public space.

The emergency team has begun receiving donations, both from State entities and from the private sector. As the country grapples with the conundrum of staying safe from the virus versus feeding its most vulnerable populations, the two principals of the BBI – Uhuru and Raila – face the challenge of getting the BBI back on its feet without looking bad.

They are in the grip of the dilemma of soliciting public funds and support against the fallout from Covid-19 on the one hand and appearing to splash public funds on the caustic politics that have so far characterised the BBI process. In the alternative, they will need to redefine the style of managing the popularisation of BBI, to make it look more decent and sedate.

If the BBI and the country’s resumed politics do not take on the character of sobriety and clear public interest, the Uhuru-Raila ship risks looking insensitive to the plight of a nation that is hurting in the grip of an unprecedented uncertainty. The two leaders could look callous and bad. At the time of this writing, Covid-19 had spread to 21 counties.

This is despite the ringfencing of Nairobi Metropolitan Area, as well as Kwale, Kilifi and Mombasa counties. Moreover, there are fears that the official numbers have possibly been understated, as the country’s testing capacity for Covid-19 could be below par.

Also heightening uncertainty is the fact that the virus could become virulent as the Nairobi Metropolitan Area, and the rest of central Kenya, begins moving towards the traditional cold season of June, July and August. So far, Covid-19 has appeared to thrive best in frigid conditions.

In a paper titled “The Tiger: Is Covid-19 a Northern Hemisphere (winter) disease?” Dr Frank Njenga, a psychiatrist, has observed that the common influenza (aka common flu) virus is mostly spread in these cold months. Dr Njenga has expressed the fear that Covid-19 could go the same way. It could hit Kenya (particularly Nairobi, Central Kenya and Lower Eastern) very hard in June – August, with devastating psychosomatic and mortal consequences.

As the country’s political top brass begins honing and brandishing its long knives, it will want to reckon with this possibility and mitigate against it. An endemic of the virus in the cold months could lead to the kind of disaster that places the nation in a rare unforgiving mood.

Other concerns pertain to the plight of Kenyans in the diaspora, in the wake of Covid-19. Images from China tell the story of grim adversity and destitution. Chinese authorities have been busy getting persons of African origin evicted from their places of abode, on the curious suspicion that they are the vectors of a resurgence of Covid-19 in the country.

Kenyans have been caught up in this muddle. Many other Kenyans are stranded in diverse parts of the world, where they went on a range of missions. Even those who had tickets to return home have found themselves suddenly trapped, with the grounding of airplanes worldwide and Nairobi’s own indefinite suspension of international flights. The political class as a whole faces the daunting challenge of balancing the toxicity of political competition with public sensibilities on the predicament of Kenyans abroad.

Plea for cultural shift

The dilemma of Kenyans abroad has been compounded by the fact that even the remains of those who die out there cannot be returned home for the final rites – regardless that they succumbed to Covid-19, or to something else.

Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe, on Monday this week advised Kenyans to be prepared for the abnormal. Regarding burial rites, Mr Kagwe stated that Kenyans must accept that in these times they will bury their relatives abroad wherever they die.

Kenyans have over the decades been beholden to their traditional rites of passage, with flavourings of neo-religious bias. Funds drives to airlift the remains of those who stop abroad are common.

The petition to inter abroad constitutes a plea for a cultural shift. It opens up Kenyans to a culture shock that could take some time to adjust to. A nation smarting its way through this cultural paradigm shift is unlikely to take kindly to restored toxic politics.

Elsewhere, Covid-19 has stalled education. Among the very first institutions to be disabled, following the first report of a positive case on March 13, were schools, colleges and universities. For upwards of one month now, learning has been frozen countrywide.

The future of national examinations hangs in the balance, as does progression to the next stage of learning, or post-learning. The political class faces the challenge of conducting its regular corrosive affairs in this uncertain learning environment and hoping that it could still look good and eschew public outrage.

Close to education is the plight of religious institutions, all of which closed down their shrines within the first two weeks of the first positive report. Across faiths, globally, the religious fraternity demurred swiftly to secular petitions to suspend group worship.

Churches in Kenya have conducted services online, while remaining prayerful that a solution to Covid-19 could come soon. Resumption of political business risks teasing faiths-based communities towards protest.

Threat by port workers

Meanwhile another sinister danger looms at the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), with mounting panic about the possibility of a Covid-19 invasion of the port. The workers have placed the Government on notice over their safety. They have threatened to withhold their labour, if the situation at the port is not urgently addressed.

A massive downing of tools at the port could shut down the entire country and cast the Great Lakes region into a spin; on account of the major role that the port plays in the movement of goods into and out of the country and the region. Kenyans online have been galled that some of their topmost trade union leaders seem to be focused on the BBI and the country’s succession politics at the expense of workers in the unfolding uncertainty.

March 13, 2020 was the day the music of Kenya’s noxious politics died. It brought to a screeching halt both sacrosanct worship in holy shrines, and sybarite revelry in public houses of average morals. Covid-19 has shocked the corporate world and stunned common hucksters alike. There are health workers, caught up in the deathly mix.

Everywhere, from ghetto to gold coast and from slum to suburb, everyone is worried about the strange rime and rhythm of their own music. They are wondering whether it will ever fall back in tune – again.

The political class will be smarting under the weight of this reality, groping for avenues of return to normal.

Yet, significantly, the country will be looking beyond the politics, in search for leadership. It is a precarious balancing act for the BBI, its principals and the entire political class, courtesy of the novel coronavirus. ?