Kenya may have its own Donald Trump to deal with

It has been an eventful week in Kenya. There were dramatic scenes at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport as the government attempted to prevent the return of Miguna Miguna, whose citizenship it had revoked and whom it had previously deported for participating in opposition leader Raila Odinga’s self-inauguration as “the people’s president”.

The government’s blatant defiance of court orders suspending the withdrawal of Miguna’s Kenyan passport has demonstrated the limits of the judiciary’s ability to enforce the rule of law. Three senior members of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration have been found guilty of contempt of court, but it is unlikely they will actually suffer any consequences.

Further, the fracas happened in the presence of Odinga, the loser of last year’s disputed presidential election, who had gone to the airport to attempt to rescue Miguna. It showed just how helpless he, and the political class he represents, are in the face of a state determined not to play by the rules. Just three weeks ago, Odinga had met Kenyatta and announced a political programme meant to heal a country deeply wounded by the election and the dispute that followed. For many Kenyans who were sceptical of the ‘Harambee House handshake’, the scenes of Odinga scuffling with security officers at the airport underscored just how far his star had fallen. More importantly, the ruckus indicates that salvaging the country and reforming the state can no longer be entrusted to the machinations and deal-making of the political class.

Then eight respected columnists for the country’s largest media house, the Nation Media Group, abruptly and publicly resigned, decrying the interference in editorial independence. This, too, is significant. In 1964, Moi’s successor as president, Mwai Kibaki had asked: “Will the elite, which has inherited power from the colonialists, use that power to bring about the necessary social and economic changes or will they succumb to the lure of wealth, comfort and status and thereby become part of the Old Establishment?” The question is even more relevant today, and the answer remains the same.

Unfortunately, those who have become part of the new establishment (including Kibaki), following the Moi dictatorship and the constitutional change of 2010, have behaved little differently from those who inherited the colonial state from the British. Kenyans may finally be waking up to the fact that citizens are the ultimate check on the behaviour of their elites. Power-sharing arrangements between politicians, an independent press (as important as that may be) or even nice words engraved into a constitution won’t save Kenya.

This realisation is what has fuelled the rise of figures such as the populist Miguna. His refusal to acquiesce to the old politics of compromise, which has seen Kenyans repeatedly thrown under the bus by the same cast of characters for the past half-century, feels like a breath of fresh air to many. It is, perhaps, a feeling many Americans may be familiar with. During his failed run for the Nairobi governorship, Miguna had few qualms about comparing himself with United States President Donald Trump, vowing to “make Nairobi great again” and to “drain the swamp”. Though the government finally succeeded in deporting him on Wednesday night, this is likely not the last we will hear of him. By its treatment of Miguna, the Kenyatta government has given him a larger platform and more legitimacy than he could have ever hoped for. Like Trump, he may now end up being the answer to a system that has woefully failed them.

So, as the Kenyatta administration does its best to drag the country back into the era of dictatorship, people are fighting back. They are refusing to play by the rules that the state itself will not submit to. They are refusing to be party to political agreements that seem only to benefit those signing them. They are refusing to continue to legitimise a media that has learnt to hide behind the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression to pursue its own interest at the expense of the public.

It may not feel like it, but Kenyans might just be on the cusp of reclaiming their democracy, by recognising that they cannot afford to continue outsourcing the fight for it to the usual coterie of politicians, media outlets and judges.

— Washington Post

Patrick Gathara is a strategic communications consultant, writer and award-winning political cartoonist in Kenya.