Why 1965 sessional paper on African Socialism is still relevant to date

From left: Founding father Jomo Kenyatta, Presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki. [File, Standard]

Some documents outlast others and become sources of inspiration or reference. They are results of serious people giving thought to pressing issues of the day. Many documents, whether religious or secular, refer to governance and are used to justify conflicting arguments. Invoking the divine, a practice that goes back to the beginnings of organised living in which people agree to be 'civil' to each other, helps rulers to rule without questioning. It happened in Kenya in both colonial and post-colonial times.

In post-colonial Kenya, documents tended to emphasise creation of the Kenyan nation. The national anthem, for instance, asks God to shower his blessings on Kenyans as they go about building the nation. The 2024 Gen Z tax uprising and the 2025 Butere Girls' 'Echoes of War play' had accusatory messages that the government had failed to adhere to the spirit of the national anthem. The most important post-colonial document, however, was the 1965 Sessional Paper Number 10 on African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya. It remains relevant to policymakers for 60 years.

The context of the document was the ideological confusion that prevailed as Kenya attained independence and republican status. While many of the leaders wanted to remain in the Anglo-American camp in the Cold War, a few talked of restructuring the state and adopting 'socialism' to counter dominant Western influence. Joseph Murumbi wanted to anchor Kenya's foreign policy on its revolutionary Mau Mau legacy but President Jomo Kenyatta feared that such policy orientation would scare remnants of the white settlers and the West and might create chaos as had happened in Congo.

The word 'socialism' was populistic and seemingly threatened entrenched interests in post-colonial Kenya. Subsequently, Kenyatta instructed his Minister for Planning, Mr Tom Mboya, to respond to the socialistic demands. Mboya, assisted by Mwai Kibaki and a Ford Foundation-seconded economic expert, Edgar Edward of Rice University in Texas, drafted an appropriate response. They used the word socialism to mean releasing the individual African spirit of acquiring wealth which the colonial state had restricted during the Mau Mau War. This made the document part of the effort to 'decolonise' the economy without destroying existing structures. The main government would worry about general policy and big projects that were beyond small groups of people. In that document, Kibaki declared in a 1997 presidential debate, Kenya rejected 'socialism'.

Although Kenyatta ordered an end to the debate on socialism because he had defined it, the debate continued for decades. It became a Kenyan ideological defence of neo-colonialism especially when compared to the ravages in the surrounding states that talked socialism and generated millions of refugees. After Somalia's irredentist doctrine destroyed its state, the Somali elite seemingly adopted a winning strategy of penetration, integration, and control of the state of residence; Kenya included. Ethiopia lost stability when 'Marxists' overthrew Haille Selassie and plunged it into chaos. Civil war ravaged Sudan which advocated Arab-Islamic socialism. Uganda went through gyrations of chaos under Milton Obote, Idi Amin, and Tanzania-trained Yoweri Museveni. The main challenge to Kenya came from Tanzania where, two years later in 1967, Julius Nyerere countered with his Ujamaa doctrine which tried to impose socialistic restructuring. Tanzania became the hub of 'socialistic' thinking in Africa. Nyerere's admission that Ujamaa economics had flopped left Kenya's 'Sessional Paper' looking good.

Kibaki had his Vision 2030 document to supplement but not replace Sessional Paper Number 10. His Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula termed it a document that always guides Kenya's foreign policy. Although both Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto issued some documents, they could not match Sessional Paper Number 10's reach and ideological thrust. While ideological purists consider the paper defective, it was part of Kenya's decolonisation effort which, 60 years later, still arouses debate on who gained or lost.