Ruto shouldn’t forget graft war

Perhaps it is just as well that President William Ruto did not pay any attention to the nagging issue of runaway corruption in this country during his inaugural address on Tuesday, considering that it was the favourite refrain during the acceptance speeches of two of his predecessors in the past two decades.

Both Presidents Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta came into office breathing fire and brimstone against the corrupt, making the fight against rampant graft the centrepiece of their pledges, rightly recognising that no country can really develop if pillage of the public purse was allowed to run riot.

To a great degree, judging from the scandals that eventually stained their administrations, they both eventually failed.

The reason for this is that this vice is not fought through high-sounding public pronouncements of intent; it ought to be a war of attrition during which each high-level thievery is recognised for what it is and its perpetrators mercilessly punished.

As some wit said, corruption always fights back and there is no way the fabled cartels will agree to lie low and be trampled to the ground by the law.

What is required is quiet but resolute action to deter muggers of the country’s economy. 

Well-nigh indestructible 

The predatory microscopic freshwater organisms, hydra, are said to neither grow old nor die.

This is because they regenerate themselves. If you cut one in half with the aim of destroying it, each of the halves will grow into a clone of its “parent” and both will continue existing quite happily.

Forgive the simplistic biology, but I had to know why corruption is often described as hydra-headed – it is well-nigh indestructible.

But then again, this is an unduly pessimistic view of the matter because, surely, there must be a way of controlling them, otherwise they would overrun the earth.

In the same vein, it would be too defeatist to conclude that corruption cannot be tamed.

It may be as old as history, and there are many of its practitioners even in the Christian Bible, but it certainly can be reduced through tough sanctions for those who engage in it.

In some societies, grand theft by servants and other serious crimes are punishable by death, but of course, nobody expects such a drastic remedy to be tried here.

It would certainly lead to serious depopulation, for most of us are corrupt to one extent or the other. Indeed, even in such societies, decapitation is hardly an effective deterrent.

This, essentially, means that the war against graft cannot be waged by the faint-hearted. It requires a warrior with a mean streak, one who will never give in to intimidation. 

Never again should Kenyans hear their president lamenting that he has done all he can to fight it but has been let down by other arms of government. 

Never should our esteemed Judiciary lament that it is being hampered in the execution of its mandate by the self-same Constitution that is meant to guide it, and therefore letting criminals walk.

Nor can a president afford to adopt a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude on matters of corruption, for that would be a serious dereliction of duty.

If they allow the race to be won by the most tainted, it will breed the kind of impunity that leaves the country bleeding.

In the same vein, since this evil was long ago devolved, a way must be found to rein in corruption at the county level, instead of entrusting ward representatives (MCAs) to hold to account villainous governors. 

Let me get to the point here: For many decades now, Kenya has been enjoying the dubious bragging rights of being one of the most corrupt countries in Africa– probably the world.

Graft is a culture that has been nurtured for well-nigh 50 years of our existence as an independent nation, and there does not seem to be any sign of us slowing down.

Lords of venality 

Well, we did once for a short while in 2002, when the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) came into power, a rare occasion when the people took matters into their own hands and even arrested the corrupt, but this moment proved short-lived, with the lords of venality eventually co-opting President Kibaki’s trusted aides into their nefarious schemes.

Anyone harbouring the illusion that this culture will end overnight will be disappointed because, despite intermittent protestations to the contrary, we seem to admire folks who blatantly rob us, and even elect them to Parliament to make laws against graft.

But still, there is hope. Now that there is a new government, we should not second-guess its intentions on this front. Nor should we keep quiet when we notice anything going wrong. 

Among members of the new government must be folks with strong ethical principles who will at least acknowledge there is a problem and protest, the first step towards recovery as a nation.

This is because, despite all the gloom, Kenyans are resilient, resourceful and industrious people who will never give up. We have been in worse situations before.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor; [email protected]