sent by George Rono

FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

On July 20, 1963, Ronald Ngala warned Kenyans that anyone trying to stop the Majimbo (Regional) Government was digging their own grave.

Does it seem to have come to pass, 43 years later? Does Kenya seem to urgently need a federal system of Government?

Our meddling with centrist unitary system of government seems to have failed. Do we need to rethink our nationhood?

Nothing lends credence to this view as clearly as the latest distribution of roads construction funds by the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. It is scandalous that close to four and a half decades after Uhuru, the distribution of development should still be so lopsided. One would have understood and excused this in the days of Jomo Kenyatta when even the smallest path in the then larger Kiambu District was tarmacked, at the expense of more justified roads elsewhere.

For, we were a nation in infancy in the Jomo Kenyatta days, fresh from the traumatic experience of the emergency. We were trying to know and accept each other. Those were the years I went to Primary School in Nairobi. I learnt all about the amoeba, the spirogyra and the paramecium in Gikuyu. We understood it as a matter of course that all the good things should go to Central Province. We were made to believe that the Mau Mau had brought independence. They said Mau Mau had come from Central Province. More over the President was also from Central Province.. Other people would have to wait for their turn to produce their President before the good things of life could go to their regions.

When President Moi came to power in 1978, he promised Kenyans that he was going to follow the footsteps of Jomo Kenyatta. And that he did.

Come December 2002 and Kenyans deluded themselves with the belief that they had crossed the valley of ethnicity. Even Luo Nyanza, which has traditionally been allergic to leadership from Central Province gave President Kibaki an astounding 98.9 per cent of the Presidential votes. But the Kibaki Government has instead reintroduced ethnicity of distressing proportions.

Why would Nyandarua District get Shillings 956 million for road construction, while the bulk of Luo Nyanza districts get less than ten million shillings each?

Why should Nyeri get Sh 785 million, while Moyale, Kisii Central, Nakuru, Trans Nzoia and Bomet get much less.

Something is wrong with the use of our taxes. In the lead to independence in 1961, the small tribes formed themselves into the Kenya Africa Democratic Union (Kadu) whose leaders were the late Ronald Ngala, Jean Marie Seroney, Masinde Muliro, John Keen and Daniel arap Moi. The prompting was their fear of political and economic dominance by the numerous Luo and Kikuyu, who were the stalwarts of Kanu. They were concerned that Kanu would form a Government that would concentrate the national wealth in the hands of these two communities. They therefore advocated for a Majimbo government, which would devolve both political power and economic wealth.

It was with Majimbo constitution that Kenya went to independence. Our leaders knew even that early in our national life that we could never trust any one tribe with the welfare of other tribes. Now we are old enough to remember what Kenyatta and Moi did, and still older enough to see what Kibaki is doing.

The portrait of an inequitable Kenya replicates itself over and over, from the Kenyatta days to the present.

Each time the President makes senior appointments to Public office, more than a half of the people are from his community. These are then flavoured with a smattering of politically correct individuals from other places, beginning with communities that claim con-sanguinity with, and propinquity to, the ruling community. It is the same in the judiciary and foreign missions, as it is in the appointments of Permanent Secretaries and heads of parastatals. People who are well past retirement age remain in office running down our institutions. They are in office to serve themselves and their communities.

The founders of the Kenyan nation were right. They came back from Lancaster with the correct constitution.

Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya messed up with it. Ngala, Muliro and Moi allowed them. Kenyatta wanted to use a unitary constitution to oppress the rest of Kenya. Mboya thought, for his part, that he would soon succeed Kenyatta and use the new constitution the same way Kenyatta was doing.

We should stop pretending that we can ever be one people, sharing equally in the national resource. Two years ago, they took to Othaya Sh 595 million for water development and to the larger Meru Sh 429 million.

The rest of Kenya¢s 72 districts got Sh. 5 million each. This was in a year when tax collection was as follows: Central Province Sh. 1.8 billion, Nyanza Sh. 6.9 billion, Western Sh. 5.5 billion, Rift Valley Sh. 5.56 billion, North Eastern Sh. 43 million, Coast Sh. 2.7 billion and Eastern Sh. 920 million. Who is cheating whom? No, I want to enjoy the benefits of my tax from Emanyulia as they enjoy in Othaya. I want devolution of wealth.

By Barrack Muluka
THE STANDARD
Saturday July 29, 2006