Paul Mutora was visited by relatives after being rescued from the morgue
Kenyan
authorities have launched an investigation into how a man declared dead
in a hospital woke up alive in its mortuary the next day.
Shocked mortuary workers at Naivasha hospital ran away when the body stirred and was seen to be breathing.Paul Mutora, who had tried to kill himself by swallowing insecticide, was pronounced dead on Wednesday night.
The chief medic said the drug used to treat him slowed the heart beat, which may have led to the mistake.
"This might have confused
medical personnel, but the victim was saved before he could be
embalmed," Dr Joseph Mburu, the superintendent in charge of Naivasha
District Hospital, was quoted by Kenya's Standard newspaper as saying.
According to the paper, Mr Mutora's father and other
relatives visited the morgue on Thursday morning to view the body and
then returned home to start funeral arrangements. "But in the afternoon we were informed, he was alive and were left in shock," the father said.
A witness told the Star newspaper that when noises were heard inside the cold room: "The mortuary attendant and a worker took to their heels screaming."
Journalists photographed Mr Mutora later recovering on a male ward in the hospital in the lakeside town, 90km (55 miles) north-west of the capital, Nairobi,
"This was a mistake from the start and I apologise to my father," the patient said.
KENYA: NO LONGER AT EASE
CANDIDATES
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto: A regular poll
conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe
the country was headed in the wrong direction. Even in the heartlands of
the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and
40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the
right direction.
SOUTH
SUDAN PRESIDENT SALVA KIIR: Nothing contributes more intensely to the
failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance
institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are
not yet up to speed.
FORMER
SOUTH SUDAN VP AND REBEL LEADER RIEK MACHAR: The reports coming out of
Juba towards the end of December were disturbing ? of neighbours turning
on neighbours and of militias hunting down those from ?opposing
tribes?.
This
set down ?This: were we led all that way for ?Birth or Death? There was
a Birth, certainly, ?We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and
death, ?But had thought they were different; this Birth was ?Hard and
bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. ?We returned to our places,
these Kingdoms, ?But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
?With an alien people clutching their gods. ?I should be glad of another
death.
- The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
South Sudan and the elite fragmentation
Putting aside political preferences, strongly held views about the integrity of the election in March and the fulminations of the ‘glass half full’ crowd which has replaced the tyranny of peace brigade, I’ll admit that reverberating convulsion of violence swept through the newly independent Republic of South Sudan gave me pause for thought.
I remember celebrating ROSS’s first year of independence last year with a mixture of joy and pride. We all knew things were going to be very very tough for South Sudan. Indeed, there was already a disturbing trend of violence in Jangolei State in the north of the country.
But then such was the will of the people of South Sudan to make a go of it unrestrained by Khartoum’s ancient attitudes and edicts that I believe this will see them thorough.
But the reports coming out of Juba towards the end of December were disturbing – of neighbours turning on neighbours; of militias hunting down those from ‘opposing tribes’, of mass graves…
It reminded me again that while there are many reasons why a state can start to fail and Foreign Policy magazine even publishes an annual list of failed states.
Of all the causes that I take most seriously as responsible for this condition when it starts to set in – elite fragmentation is the characteristic I follow most closely.
Ironically South Sudan was in the top four of the latest version of this list and Kenya a point away from the stage immediately preceding total collapse.
South Sudan’s misery resonates in part because the tipping point to violence and that which lent that violence an ethnic hue was derived from inability of the ruling elite to see eye to eye and at the same time demonstrate a willingness to use citizens as fodder. The speed of this last deterioration was stunning.
Also ironic have been statements by leaders in the midst of the violence like the Speaker of the National Assembly in Juba essentially acknowledging that a scrap within the elite has quickly morphed into an apparent ethnic conflagration. Calm heads will prevail.
Kenya: No longer at ease
A couple of weeks ago a regular poll conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Even in the heartlands of the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and 40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the right direction.
Startlingly, a majority of Kenyans (54 percent) were polled as saying the Jubilee government had achieved nothing so far. The high cost of living and insecurity were the primary issues worrying citizens. I’ll admit to having been surprised by these statistics.
Post Moi generation
One of the most important developments that took place during the last election was the sheer number of Kenyans below the age of 34 who voted – many for the first time.
They account for 74 percent of the population. Call me an aging cynic, which I might very well be, but I totally took foregranted that this digital demographic are the most enlightened in Kenya’s history.
At the polls they showed themselves to be just as tribal as the rest of us and in fact where acquisition of health is concerned, for them it matter no the how one gets rich but that one becomes rich – period.
The brilliantly executed Jubilee campaign played to these aspirations with ceaseless clarity. Many young Kenyans ‘believed’! They bought into the Jubilee manifesto despite some its clearly wildly populist promises considering the prevailing economic circumstances.
I completely misread this: that Kenyans are terrible students of history and therefore are inclined to repeat mistakes of yesteryear again and again.
The disappointment of this youthful group, as the cost of living rises, promises made are set aside and hard-won freedoms are rolled back has been surprising. They were piqued by the appointment by political has-beens as parastatal heads at the end of the December, for example.
But then one has to keep in mind that this digital generation of consumers don’t remember the Moi years. They bought the hype and it didn’t help that the CORD campaign was flaccid and totally uninspiring.
But then this is also a generation in a hurry. They want results yesterday. And so, it make sense that a massive sense of disappointment is setting in.
Otherwise, I’m unable to explain why so many believe Kenya is failing and that the government has done nothing. This disappointment will turn to anger and it management will help determine Kenya’s stability. And we don’t have an ‘app’ to fix that.
A big blow to the credibility of the ICC
The opinion poll came hot on the heels of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda’s, announcement that because key witnesses were dropping out of the Uhuru Kenyatta case she was seeking an adjournment to rebuild it.
This was a big blow to the credibility of the ICC and it is likely some time before Africans trust it wholeheartedly as the Court of last resort since to many it has shown itself as prone to ruthless machinations of African elites like our own courts back home.
Oddly enough, however, this development did not cause delirious excitement among the President’s supporters. This confused me. To understand why, one must go back to the unspoken compact that is the glue holding the Jubilee coalition together, and that is at the heart of the Uhuruto bromance.
PEV: What actually happened that we can't admit to the ICC
The made up narrative of Uhuru and Ruto being victims of foreign funded NGOs and a few foreign countries ironically has been blown out of the water by witnesses withdrawing from the case out of fear and alleged bribery.
Kenyans are a smart lot, if the witnesses were essentially trained actors why the need to pressure them not to stand in the witness box and be exposed as charlatans?
The unspoken narrative that gave birth to the Jubilee coalition is as follows: around September 2007, Mwai Kibaki (PNU) and his team realised Raila Odinga (then partnered with William Ruto in ODM) were about to beat the incumbent at the upcoming presidential elections and all the stops were pulled out to prevent this.
With the perception amongst Odinga’s supports that the election had been rigged to give the advantage to the president, the announcement of the result almost led to civil war following Raila Odinga’s call for ‘mass action’ in protest of the theft of the presidency.
Thus, in parts of Kenya supporting Odinga’s ODM, members of the President’s ethnic group, the Gikuyu, found themselves targeted by furious mobs; in the ensuing violence over 1,300 Kenyans died and at one time over 600,000 were displaced.
This narrative casts the man whom Kibaki had defeated for the presidency in 2002 and who he would later reward with the position of deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, to rally the Gikuyu masses who were under siege.
It was this leadership during this crisis – on behalf of Kibaki – that saw him end up at the ICC. Similarly, William Ruto’s proactive posture on behalf of Odinga, saw him caught in the same net.
Asked privately, many Kenyans believe Kibaki and Odinga should have been the ones at the Hague not Kenyatta and Ruto. The only problem is that this is not an argument one can use in a court, let alone the ICC.
The cause for concern amongst the president’s closest supporters is the possibility that should Uhuru’s case collapse while Ruto’s chugs on, there may a high political cost. Indeed, even if both cases flop for non-legal reasons the contradictions within the ruling elite will likely still play out.
For theirs is a low-trust political union. So much so, that when 15 homes were burnt at Burnt Forest in Uasin Gishu County, apparently because of a disagreement emanating from the activities of chang’aa brewers, many held their breath, fearing their worst nightmares had come back to haunt the region. For those who believe that the unspoken compact between Uhuru and Ruto is derived from their common condition as defendants at the Hague, there is much to fear should anything destabilise the grounds for the alliance.
Nothing contributes more intensely to the failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are not yet up to speed.
The Counties are causing deeper elite fragmentation though the flip side of this is that we can emerge with our own negotiated democracy that ends the winner-takes-all mentality.
An elite fragments when chunks of it come to believe they are being denied their turn to eat. They militarise the poor and provoke violence simply as a negotiating tactic – war as they say is politics by other means.
- The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
South Sudan and the elite fragmentation
Putting aside political preferences, strongly held views about the integrity of the election in March and the fulminations of the ‘glass half full’ crowd which has replaced the tyranny of peace brigade, I’ll admit that reverberating convulsion of violence swept through the newly independent Republic of South Sudan gave me pause for thought.
I remember celebrating ROSS’s first year of independence last year with a mixture of joy and pride. We all knew things were going to be very very tough for South Sudan. Indeed, there was already a disturbing trend of violence in Jangolei State in the north of the country.
But then such was the will of the people of South Sudan to make a go of it unrestrained by Khartoum’s ancient attitudes and edicts that I believe this will see them thorough.
But the reports coming out of Juba towards the end of December were disturbing – of neighbours turning on neighbours; of militias hunting down those from ‘opposing tribes’, of mass graves…
It reminded me again that while there are many reasons why a state can start to fail and Foreign Policy magazine even publishes an annual list of failed states.
Of all the causes that I take most seriously as responsible for this condition when it starts to set in – elite fragmentation is the characteristic I follow most closely.
Ironically South Sudan was in the top four of the latest version of this list and Kenya a point away from the stage immediately preceding total collapse.
South Sudan’s misery resonates in part because the tipping point to violence and that which lent that violence an ethnic hue was derived from inability of the ruling elite to see eye to eye and at the same time demonstrate a willingness to use citizens as fodder. The speed of this last deterioration was stunning.
Also ironic have been statements by leaders in the midst of the violence like the Speaker of the National Assembly in Juba essentially acknowledging that a scrap within the elite has quickly morphed into an apparent ethnic conflagration. Calm heads will prevail.
Kenya: No longer at ease
A couple of weeks ago a regular poll conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Even in the heartlands of the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and 40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the right direction.
Startlingly, a majority of Kenyans (54 percent) were polled as saying the Jubilee government had achieved nothing so far. The high cost of living and insecurity were the primary issues worrying citizens. I’ll admit to having been surprised by these statistics.
Post Moi generation
One of the most important developments that took place during the last election was the sheer number of Kenyans below the age of 34 who voted – many for the first time.
They account for 74 percent of the population. Call me an aging cynic, which I might very well be, but I totally took foregranted that this digital demographic are the most enlightened in Kenya’s history.
At the polls they showed themselves to be just as tribal as the rest of us and in fact where acquisition of health is concerned, for them it matter no the how one gets rich but that one becomes rich – period.
The brilliantly executed Jubilee campaign played to these aspirations with ceaseless clarity. Many young Kenyans ‘believed’! They bought into the Jubilee manifesto despite some its clearly wildly populist promises considering the prevailing economic circumstances.
I completely misread this: that Kenyans are terrible students of history and therefore are inclined to repeat mistakes of yesteryear again and again.
The disappointment of this youthful group, as the cost of living rises, promises made are set aside and hard-won freedoms are rolled back has been surprising. They were piqued by the appointment by political has-beens as parastatal heads at the end of the December, for example.
But then one has to keep in mind that this digital generation of consumers don’t remember the Moi years. They bought the hype and it didn’t help that the CORD campaign was flaccid and totally uninspiring.
But then this is also a generation in a hurry. They want results yesterday. And so, it make sense that a massive sense of disappointment is setting in.
Otherwise, I’m unable to explain why so many believe Kenya is failing and that the government has done nothing. This disappointment will turn to anger and it management will help determine Kenya’s stability. And we don’t have an ‘app’ to fix that.
A big blow to the credibility of the ICC
The opinion poll came hot on the heels of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda’s, announcement that because key witnesses were dropping out of the Uhuru Kenyatta case she was seeking an adjournment to rebuild it.
This was a big blow to the credibility of the ICC and it is likely some time before Africans trust it wholeheartedly as the Court of last resort since to many it has shown itself as prone to ruthless machinations of African elites like our own courts back home.
Oddly enough, however, this development did not cause delirious excitement among the President’s supporters. This confused me. To understand why, one must go back to the unspoken compact that is the glue holding the Jubilee coalition together, and that is at the heart of the Uhuruto bromance.
PEV: What actually happened that we can't admit to the ICC
The made up narrative of Uhuru and Ruto being victims of foreign funded NGOs and a few foreign countries ironically has been blown out of the water by witnesses withdrawing from the case out of fear and alleged bribery.
Kenyans are a smart lot, if the witnesses were essentially trained actors why the need to pressure them not to stand in the witness box and be exposed as charlatans?
The unspoken narrative that gave birth to the Jubilee coalition is as follows: around September 2007, Mwai Kibaki (PNU) and his team realised Raila Odinga (then partnered with William Ruto in ODM) were about to beat the incumbent at the upcoming presidential elections and all the stops were pulled out to prevent this.
With the perception amongst Odinga’s supports that the election had been rigged to give the advantage to the president, the announcement of the result almost led to civil war following Raila Odinga’s call for ‘mass action’ in protest of the theft of the presidency.
Thus, in parts of Kenya supporting Odinga’s ODM, members of the President’s ethnic group, the Gikuyu, found themselves targeted by furious mobs; in the ensuing violence over 1,300 Kenyans died and at one time over 600,000 were displaced.
This narrative casts the man whom Kibaki had defeated for the presidency in 2002 and who he would later reward with the position of deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, to rally the Gikuyu masses who were under siege.
It was this leadership during this crisis – on behalf of Kibaki – that saw him end up at the ICC. Similarly, William Ruto’s proactive posture on behalf of Odinga, saw him caught in the same net.
Asked privately, many Kenyans believe Kibaki and Odinga should have been the ones at the Hague not Kenyatta and Ruto. The only problem is that this is not an argument one can use in a court, let alone the ICC.
The cause for concern amongst the president’s closest supporters is the possibility that should Uhuru’s case collapse while Ruto’s chugs on, there may a high political cost. Indeed, even if both cases flop for non-legal reasons the contradictions within the ruling elite will likely still play out.
For theirs is a low-trust political union. So much so, that when 15 homes were burnt at Burnt Forest in Uasin Gishu County, apparently because of a disagreement emanating from the activities of chang’aa brewers, many held their breath, fearing their worst nightmares had come back to haunt the region. For those who believe that the unspoken compact between Uhuru and Ruto is derived from their common condition as defendants at the Hague, there is much to fear should anything destabilise the grounds for the alliance.
Nothing contributes more intensely to the failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are not yet up to speed.
The Counties are causing deeper elite fragmentation though the flip side of this is that we can emerge with our own negotiated democracy that ends the winner-takes-all mentality.
An elite fragments when chunks of it come to believe they are being denied their turn to eat. They militarise the poor and provoke violence simply as a negotiating tactic – war as they say is politics by other means.
KENYA: NO LONGER AT EASE
CANDIDATES
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto: A regular poll
conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe
the country was headed in the wrong direction. Even in the heartlands of
the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and
40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the
right direction.
SOUTH
SUDAN PRESIDENT SALVA KIIR: Nothing contributes more intensely to the
failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance
institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are
not yet up to speed.
FORMER
SOUTH SUDAN VP AND REBEL LEADER RIEK MACHAR: The reports coming out of
Juba towards the end of December were disturbing ? of neighbours turning
on neighbours and of militias hunting down those from ?opposing
tribes?.
This
set down ?This: were we led all that way for ?Birth or Death? There was
a Birth, certainly, ?We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and
death, ?But had thought they were different; this Birth was ?Hard and
bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. ?We returned to our places,
these Kingdoms, ?But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
?With an alien people clutching their gods. ?I should be glad of another
death.
- The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
South Sudan and the elite fragmentation
Putting aside political preferences, strongly held views about the integrity of the election in March and the fulminations of the ‘glass half full’ crowd which has replaced the tyranny of peace brigade, I’ll admit that reverberating convulsion of violence swept through the newly independent Republic of South Sudan gave me pause for thought.
I remember celebrating ROSS’s first year of independence last year with a mixture of joy and pride. We all knew things were going to be very very tough for South Sudan. Indeed, there was already a disturbing trend of violence in Jangolei State in the north of the country.
But then such was the will of the people of South Sudan to make a go of it unrestrained by Khartoum’s ancient attitudes and edicts that I believe this will see them thorough.
But the reports coming out of Juba towards the end of December were disturbing – of neighbours turning on neighbours; of militias hunting down those from ‘opposing tribes’, of mass graves…
It reminded me again that while there are many reasons why a state can start to fail and Foreign Policy magazine even publishes an annual list of failed states.
Of all the causes that I take most seriously as responsible for this condition when it starts to set in – elite fragmentation is the characteristic I follow most closely.
Ironically South Sudan was in the top four of the latest version of this list and Kenya a point away from the stage immediately preceding total collapse.
South Sudan’s misery resonates in part because the tipping point to violence and that which lent that violence an ethnic hue was derived from inability of the ruling elite to see eye to eye and at the same time demonstrate a willingness to use citizens as fodder. The speed of this last deterioration was stunning.
Also ironic have been statements by leaders in the midst of the violence like the Speaker of the National Assembly in Juba essentially acknowledging that a scrap within the elite has quickly morphed into an apparent ethnic conflagration. Calm heads will prevail.
Kenya: No longer at ease
A couple of weeks ago a regular poll conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Even in the heartlands of the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and 40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the right direction.
Startlingly, a majority of Kenyans (54 percent) were polled as saying the Jubilee government had achieved nothing so far. The high cost of living and insecurity were the primary issues worrying citizens. I’ll admit to having been surprised by these statistics.
Post Moi generation
One of the most important developments that took place during the last election was the sheer number of Kenyans below the age of 34 who voted – many for the first time.
They account for 74 percent of the population. Call me an aging cynic, which I might very well be, but I totally took foregranted that this digital demographic are the most enlightened in Kenya’s history.
At the polls they showed themselves to be just as tribal as the rest of us and in fact where acquisition of health is concerned, for them it matter no the how one gets rich but that one becomes rich – period.
The brilliantly executed Jubilee campaign played to these aspirations with ceaseless clarity. Many young Kenyans ‘believed’! They bought into the Jubilee manifesto despite some its clearly wildly populist promises considering the prevailing economic circumstances.
I completely misread this: that Kenyans are terrible students of history and therefore are inclined to repeat mistakes of yesteryear again and again.
The disappointment of this youthful group, as the cost of living rises, promises made are set aside and hard-won freedoms are rolled back has been surprising. They were piqued by the appointment by political has-beens as parastatal heads at the end of the December, for example.
But then one has to keep in mind that this digital generation of consumers don’t remember the Moi years. They bought the hype and it didn’t help that the CORD campaign was flaccid and totally uninspiring.
But then this is also a generation in a hurry. They want results yesterday. And so, it make sense that a massive sense of disappointment is setting in.
Otherwise, I’m unable to explain why so many believe Kenya is failing and that the government has done nothing. This disappointment will turn to anger and it management will help determine Kenya’s stability. And we don’t have an ‘app’ to fix that.
A big blow to the credibility of the ICC
The opinion poll came hot on the heels of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda’s, announcement that because key witnesses were dropping out of the Uhuru Kenyatta case she was seeking an adjournment to rebuild it.
This was a big blow to the credibility of the ICC and it is likely some time before Africans trust it wholeheartedly as the Court of last resort since to many it has shown itself as prone to ruthless machinations of African elites like our own courts back home.
Oddly enough, however, this development did not cause delirious excitement among the President’s supporters. This confused me. To understand why, one must go back to the unspoken compact that is the glue holding the Jubilee coalition together, and that is at the heart of the Uhuruto bromance.
PEV: What actually happened that we can't admit to the ICC
The made up narrative of Uhuru and Ruto being victims of foreign funded NGOs and a few foreign countries ironically has been blown out of the water by witnesses withdrawing from the case out of fear and alleged bribery.
Kenyans are a smart lot, if the witnesses were essentially trained actors why the need to pressure them not to stand in the witness box and be exposed as charlatans?
The unspoken narrative that gave birth to the Jubilee coalition is as follows: around September 2007, Mwai Kibaki (PNU) and his team realised Raila Odinga (then partnered with William Ruto in ODM) were about to beat the incumbent at the upcoming presidential elections and all the stops were pulled out to prevent this.
With the perception amongst Odinga’s supports that the election had been rigged to give the advantage to the president, the announcement of the result almost led to civil war following Raila Odinga’s call for ‘mass action’ in protest of the theft of the presidency.
Thus, in parts of Kenya supporting Odinga’s ODM, members of the President’s ethnic group, the Gikuyu, found themselves targeted by furious mobs; in the ensuing violence over 1,300 Kenyans died and at one time over 600,000 were displaced.
This narrative casts the man whom Kibaki had defeated for the presidency in 2002 and who he would later reward with the position of deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, to rally the Gikuyu masses who were under siege.
It was this leadership during this crisis – on behalf of Kibaki – that saw him end up at the ICC. Similarly, William Ruto’s proactive posture on behalf of Odinga, saw him caught in the same net.
Asked privately, many Kenyans believe Kibaki and Odinga should have been the ones at the Hague not Kenyatta and Ruto. The only problem is that this is not an argument one can use in a court, let alone the ICC.
The cause for concern amongst the president’s closest supporters is the possibility that should Uhuru’s case collapse while Ruto’s chugs on, there may a high political cost. Indeed, even if both cases flop for non-legal reasons the contradictions within the ruling elite will likely still play out.
For theirs is a low-trust political union. So much so, that when 15 homes were burnt at Burnt Forest in Uasin Gishu County, apparently because of a disagreement emanating from the activities of chang’aa brewers, many held their breath, fearing their worst nightmares had come back to haunt the region. For those who believe that the unspoken compact between Uhuru and Ruto is derived from their common condition as defendants at the Hague, there is much to fear should anything destabilise the grounds for the alliance.
Nothing contributes more intensely to the failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are not yet up to speed.
The Counties are causing deeper elite fragmentation though the flip side of this is that we can emerge with our own negotiated democracy that ends the winner-takes-all mentality.
An elite fragments when chunks of it come to believe they are being denied their turn to eat. They militarise the poor and provoke violence simply as a negotiating tactic – war as they say is politics by other means.
- The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot
South Sudan and the elite fragmentation
Putting aside political preferences, strongly held views about the integrity of the election in March and the fulminations of the ‘glass half full’ crowd which has replaced the tyranny of peace brigade, I’ll admit that reverberating convulsion of violence swept through the newly independent Republic of South Sudan gave me pause for thought.
I remember celebrating ROSS’s first year of independence last year with a mixture of joy and pride. We all knew things were going to be very very tough for South Sudan. Indeed, there was already a disturbing trend of violence in Jangolei State in the north of the country.
But then such was the will of the people of South Sudan to make a go of it unrestrained by Khartoum’s ancient attitudes and edicts that I believe this will see them thorough.
But the reports coming out of Juba towards the end of December were disturbing – of neighbours turning on neighbours; of militias hunting down those from ‘opposing tribes’, of mass graves…
It reminded me again that while there are many reasons why a state can start to fail and Foreign Policy magazine even publishes an annual list of failed states.
Of all the causes that I take most seriously as responsible for this condition when it starts to set in – elite fragmentation is the characteristic I follow most closely.
Ironically South Sudan was in the top four of the latest version of this list and Kenya a point away from the stage immediately preceding total collapse.
South Sudan’s misery resonates in part because the tipping point to violence and that which lent that violence an ethnic hue was derived from inability of the ruling elite to see eye to eye and at the same time demonstrate a willingness to use citizens as fodder. The speed of this last deterioration was stunning.
Also ironic have been statements by leaders in the midst of the violence like the Speaker of the National Assembly in Juba essentially acknowledging that a scrap within the elite has quickly morphed into an apparent ethnic conflagration. Calm heads will prevail.
Kenya: No longer at ease
A couple of weeks ago a regular poll conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that 64 percent of Kenyans believe the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Even in the heartlands of the Jubilee Government in Central and Rift Valley only 54 percent and 40 percent of Kenyans respectively believed things were going in the right direction.
Startlingly, a majority of Kenyans (54 percent) were polled as saying the Jubilee government had achieved nothing so far. The high cost of living and insecurity were the primary issues worrying citizens. I’ll admit to having been surprised by these statistics.
Post Moi generation
One of the most important developments that took place during the last election was the sheer number of Kenyans below the age of 34 who voted – many for the first time.
They account for 74 percent of the population. Call me an aging cynic, which I might very well be, but I totally took foregranted that this digital demographic are the most enlightened in Kenya’s history.
At the polls they showed themselves to be just as tribal as the rest of us and in fact where acquisition of health is concerned, for them it matter no the how one gets rich but that one becomes rich – period.
The brilliantly executed Jubilee campaign played to these aspirations with ceaseless clarity. Many young Kenyans ‘believed’! They bought into the Jubilee manifesto despite some its clearly wildly populist promises considering the prevailing economic circumstances.
I completely misread this: that Kenyans are terrible students of history and therefore are inclined to repeat mistakes of yesteryear again and again.
The disappointment of this youthful group, as the cost of living rises, promises made are set aside and hard-won freedoms are rolled back has been surprising. They were piqued by the appointment by political has-beens as parastatal heads at the end of the December, for example.
But then one has to keep in mind that this digital generation of consumers don’t remember the Moi years. They bought the hype and it didn’t help that the CORD campaign was flaccid and totally uninspiring.
But then this is also a generation in a hurry. They want results yesterday. And so, it make sense that a massive sense of disappointment is setting in.
Otherwise, I’m unable to explain why so many believe Kenya is failing and that the government has done nothing. This disappointment will turn to anger and it management will help determine Kenya’s stability. And we don’t have an ‘app’ to fix that.
A big blow to the credibility of the ICC
The opinion poll came hot on the heels of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda’s, announcement that because key witnesses were dropping out of the Uhuru Kenyatta case she was seeking an adjournment to rebuild it.
This was a big blow to the credibility of the ICC and it is likely some time before Africans trust it wholeheartedly as the Court of last resort since to many it has shown itself as prone to ruthless machinations of African elites like our own courts back home.
Oddly enough, however, this development did not cause delirious excitement among the President’s supporters. This confused me. To understand why, one must go back to the unspoken compact that is the glue holding the Jubilee coalition together, and that is at the heart of the Uhuruto bromance.
PEV: What actually happened that we can't admit to the ICC
The made up narrative of Uhuru and Ruto being victims of foreign funded NGOs and a few foreign countries ironically has been blown out of the water by witnesses withdrawing from the case out of fear and alleged bribery.
Kenyans are a smart lot, if the witnesses were essentially trained actors why the need to pressure them not to stand in the witness box and be exposed as charlatans?
The unspoken narrative that gave birth to the Jubilee coalition is as follows: around September 2007, Mwai Kibaki (PNU) and his team realised Raila Odinga (then partnered with William Ruto in ODM) were about to beat the incumbent at the upcoming presidential elections and all the stops were pulled out to prevent this.
With the perception amongst Odinga’s supports that the election had been rigged to give the advantage to the president, the announcement of the result almost led to civil war following Raila Odinga’s call for ‘mass action’ in protest of the theft of the presidency.
Thus, in parts of Kenya supporting Odinga’s ODM, members of the President’s ethnic group, the Gikuyu, found themselves targeted by furious mobs; in the ensuing violence over 1,300 Kenyans died and at one time over 600,000 were displaced.
This narrative casts the man whom Kibaki had defeated for the presidency in 2002 and who he would later reward with the position of deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, to rally the Gikuyu masses who were under siege.
It was this leadership during this crisis – on behalf of Kibaki – that saw him end up at the ICC. Similarly, William Ruto’s proactive posture on behalf of Odinga, saw him caught in the same net.
Asked privately, many Kenyans believe Kibaki and Odinga should have been the ones at the Hague not Kenyatta and Ruto. The only problem is that this is not an argument one can use in a court, let alone the ICC.
The cause for concern amongst the president’s closest supporters is the possibility that should Uhuru’s case collapse while Ruto’s chugs on, there may a high political cost. Indeed, even if both cases flop for non-legal reasons the contradictions within the ruling elite will likely still play out.
For theirs is a low-trust political union. So much so, that when 15 homes were burnt at Burnt Forest in Uasin Gishu County, apparently because of a disagreement emanating from the activities of chang’aa brewers, many held their breath, fearing their worst nightmares had come back to haunt the region. For those who believe that the unspoken compact between Uhuru and Ruto is derived from their common condition as defendants at the Hague, there is much to fear should anything destabilise the grounds for the alliance.
Nothing contributes more intensely to the failure of a state than fragmentation among its elites when governance institutions like the judiciary, parliament, security services etc are not yet up to speed.
The Counties are causing deeper elite fragmentation though the flip side of this is that we can emerge with our own negotiated democracy that ends the winner-takes-all mentality.
An elite fragments when chunks of it come to believe they are being denied their turn to eat. They militarise the poor and provoke violence simply as a negotiating tactic – war as they say is politics by other means.
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