President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto often say all the right things while addressing the public, such as their repeated assertion that civil service positions should be equitably shared among all Kenyans.
Yet their actions, which speak much louder than their words, tell a completely different story.
The clear writing on the wall is that the two ethnic communities that form the bedrock of the UhuRuto government have a much more elevated chance to clinch plum State jobs at the expense of Kenya’s other 42 ethnic communities.
The indisputable fact is that equitable sharing of employment opportunities and other national resources promotes balanced economic development across the country, and effectively promote a sense of belonging, patriotism and shared destiny. Yet this basic principle of social justice has only existed in our country in theory.
Since the independence government to the present one, ascension to State House has been interpreted as a blank cheque for the President’s ethnic community to benefit from state largesse, aptly captured in John Githongo’s book; “It’s our turn to eat.”
Recent appointments by the Jubilee government leave no doubt that it is the turn of some communities to eat more than their fair share of the national cake.
Right from the hiring of Cabinet secretaries to the ongoing recruitment of parastatal chiefs, the president and his deputy have demonstrated that individuals’ tribes count more than their characters, track records or qualifications.
Two ethnic communities have dominated appointments to top positions in the civil service and State corporations, with only a token sprinkling of recruitments from other communities to cover up the unfolding national shame.
One of the sub-communities in the Mt Kenya region even had the temerity to complain bitterly in public that the president had made two senior appointments from the same village, to the obvious bewilderment of “opposition” strongholds which have been relegated to the periphery.
This governance by exclusion is exactly what triggered the mayhem in 2008 that followed the disputed presidential poll, and is sure to stoke similar crisis in future if the current trend is sustained.
Even though the reality of Kenyan politics is that voting patterns closely mirror ethnic contours, sharing of national resources along the same lines is neither acceptable nor sustainable.
President Kenyatta and his deputy must resist the defeatist belief that Kenyan voters only understand and reward blatant tribal gestures.
Tribalism is the surest way to weaken the national foundation and set the country on a path to self-destruction.
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