We should just ignore politicians and build credible institutions

One of my earliest lessons on the integrity of Kenyan politicians was during campaigns for a by-election somewhere in Tharaka Nithi in 1999. The by-election came after three Court of Appeal judges struck out an appeal lodged by Democratic Party’s Bernard Njoka Mutani after a lower court, on April 23, 1997, nullified his election as Nithi MP in the 1997 General Election.

The petition had been filed by Kanu’s Captain Eustace Mbuba Ntwiga. Back then, I was learning the ropes of teaching at a small school in the area.

So, as I was lounging around a place called Chogoria on a Saturday, I chanced upon a campaign rally where a top national politician, who will remain nameless for now, was imploring the crowd to vote for a young man in the coming by-election.

Someone in the crowd asked our fiery top opposition politician why they should vote for the youngish, fresh-from-college candidate, yet he had no experience in national leadership and yet he was no ‘doctor’ or ‘professor’, meaning he was not so properly educated as to leapfrog the other seasoned and - obviously – financially well-heeled aspirants.

Our top politician grabbed the microphone, paced around, presumably cooking up some convincing political humbug and then lit up. “This young man,” our top politician roared above the murmurs in the crowd, “is among the most educated men in East Africa. You see, his title is not ‘mister’.

His title is ‘mister mister’. Now, what you don’t know is that after one gets a Phd, they are called ‘Doctor’, then after that they become ‘Professor’ after that they are given the title ‘mister mister.” I was taken aback. How could the well-liked and immensely respected second-liberation leader expect the people to buy such a barefaced lie? Funny enough, in the next few weeks, the man was rumoured to be among the most educated in Africa – of course you know how such stories reach hyperbolical proportions once the African oral rumour mill starts spinning.

From that time, I came to realise that politicians do not lie because they are necessarily bad people. They lie, bribe and even cook humbug like the Nithi one because it is the only thing that seems to work like magic with us. Of course you can scowl at their jokes at rallies but believe you me, like I realised in that Nithi rally, you stand no chance of convincing the public once the political fat lady has belted out her tune at the rally. I came to be convinced that it is up to forward-looking people – civil society, religious leaders, the media, and so on – to ensure that the nation is steeled by strong institutions that cannot be swept away by the whimsical, self-serving, yet very influential lies politicians survive by telling.

And as we head to the next polls, we have a lot of house-cleaning to do. First we have the Independent, Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). The agency’s credibility has been eroded first by the saga of the BVR kits for the 2013 elections, then the Chickengate scandal, among others.

Of course some of the arguments against the agency may be just hot air. This is to say I do not know whether IEBC is in bed with Jubilee, as CORD is alleging. I also do not have evidence on whether they fiddled with any results. I however saw some things that looked like artworks drawn at kindergarten and which were supposed to be signatures for the Okoa Kenya referendum and, tell you what, I will not comment.

What I know for sure is that right now we must stop listening to politicians from any side of the political divide and fix our institutions especially ahead of the next polls. We must make sure we have a credible electoral agency, a credible judicial recourse in case of electoral disputes and ensure other related organs are infallible. They are the only shield we have against the rather influential political class, especially now when we are heading to an obviously tension-packed elections.