Why resources remain Kenya’s divisive factor

By MOSES MiCHIRA

Kenyans’ eyes trained on Uhuru Kenyatta government with high expectations it will reverse the post-Independence trend of discriminative distribution of the national cake

On this day, in 1993, an outspoken Opposition was threatening a campaign to refuse to pay taxes if the Government failed to distribute funds in the National Budget equitably across Kenya’s tribes.

The opposition leader issuing the threat was Mwai Kibaki, who later became the third President, and faced his own challenges in the equitable distribution of funds.

In 1993, his focus was on President Moi and the need for him to distribute national resources fairly across all regions. Kibaki was unclear how the Opposition would rally citizens to boycott payment of taxes, but he said people should not support a Government that was unfair in the allocation of national resources.

It was feared the Budget being prepared by the government of President Moi that year would reward regions that had overwhelmingly voted for him, while discriminating against communities that supported the then Opposition in the country’s first multi-party elections held in December 1992.

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Inequitable distribution of national resources would later become the clarion call for supporters of a devolved system of governance, which has just become a reality after the elections of March, this year.

This slow birth of regional balancing has left some regions far behind in the development agenda without basic services, such as healthcare and water, while even small villages in other parts of the country have grid electricity, paved roads and piped water.

Kibaki’s Controversial election

It is expected the devolved government structure will now help in ensuring all regions have fair access to the country’s resources through counties under elected governors.

But back then, in the country’s first multi-party elections, a fragmented Opposition led by Kenneth Matiba and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, had lost to the incumbent President Moi in a process that left the country divided along ethnic lines.

Communities perceived to be sympathetic to the Opposition had been evicted from their homes in several towns including Nakuru, Molo and Eldoret, in clashes that were downplayed then, only to become the genesis of a major bloodshed, 15 years later in 2007/08.

Kenya was then thrust onto the global scene with the violence that followed the 2007 General Election after President Kibaki was controversially re-elected, resulting in the death of at least 1,333 people and displacement of more than 500,000 others. 

Likewise, competition for political office and the inequitable distribution of national resources were cited as the twin causes of the inter-ethnic violence that had played out in the 1997 general elections.

Indeed, throughout independent Kenya’s first half century, access to national resources and jobs for individuals and for communities has been closely linked to political power, raising the stakes for prospective leaders who still rally their tribes to back them in ascending to the presidency.

Kenya’s month-old new government led by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, pushed by constitutional requirements, has now taken a different approach in the appointment of top officials, such as Cabinet Secretaries.

The Constitution, adopted in 2010, demands regional and gender balance in all appointments to public office, which also have to be approved by Parliament’s Appointments Committee.

Reprieve to demolition victims

But in 1993, Kibaki’s threat was a reaction to what his Democratic Party termed a plot by the Government to ‘pauperise and harass’ Opposition supporters through the demolition of more than 600 kiosks in Nakuru town, the previous weekend.

Kibaki said the high-handed administration was unlikely to offer any reprieve to the victims of the demolitions in President Moi’s hometown of Nakuru, which had largely supported Matiba for president.

“It is possible the Budget will be biased against the same victims,” The Standard quoted Kibaki as saying then.

He was echoing concerns raised by the Official Opposition Leader Matiba, who had visited the affected residents of Nakuru and reported they been ‘seriously brutalised’ by the police.

The demolitions, both Matiba and Kibaki alleged, were meant to clear the public land that was to be allocated to senior Government officials and cronies of the then regime.

Narc coalition victory

Such claims represented a profound development in the country’s history, with the introduction of multi-party politics seeing Kibaki standing against Moi after many years of serving as his principal deputy and Finance minister.

Kibaki, who retired as President last month, emerged fourth in the 1992 elections, behind Matiba and Odinga, with all of the Opposition candidates promising to deliver a more democratic leadership than Moi.

He had then emerged second in the subsequent general elections held in December 1997, before he finally clinched the top office through a coalition formed by a united opposition in 2002.

Since that time, the resources at stake have also grown, with Kenya’s national Budget now almost ten times larger than then, at Sh1.6 trillion, with the highest growth achieved in the tenure of retired President Kibaki, between 2003 and March 2013.