Tonyleeks - Corruption in Africa: Kenya

Continuing our exclusive Tonyleeks coverage of African corruption, this time we focus on Kenya. The golden child of Britain's colonial experiments in Africa, if you exclude South Africa, Kenya a diverse land with many different tribes has also suffered under the hands of its leaders.

Founding father

Kenya attained its independence from Britain in 1963 and a year later became a republic. The newly crowned Prime Minister and then President was none other than the man who'd been at the front of the political fight for freedom, Jomo Kenyatta. This is not to say that he was the most prominent agitator, but he was definitely the front line candidate when independence finally arrived, much like Nelson Mandela in South Africa. However, Kenyatta swiftly surrounded himself with his most trusted advisers, who happened to be close friends and relatives. Some members of his political party, KANU, who happened to be from different tribes were quickly marginalised and even imprisoned. In the 1950's the GDP per capita of Kenya was just under $1,000 which, at the time, was higher than South Korea's. By 1973, Kenya's GDP had just passed $1,000 and South Korea's was just under $3,000. Kenya had virtually stagnated and South Korea was growing. Why?

Moi

The problems in Kenya were started by Kenyatta, but it was Daniel Arap Moi who refined corruption to an art. Corruption in 80's Kenya was a fact of life. The administrators in government offices depended on hand-outs to perform jobs that they were paid to do. The policemen and women supplemented their wages with bribes. And, of course, the president himself, and his friends, awarded themselves with the most lucrative of contracts from donor countries. The World Bank at one time was Moi's bank, money coming in to the country, and into the Kenyan Central Bank was shuffled into his personal account.

Both Moi and Kenyatta snatched the best land in Kenya for themselves. But they were also careful to not keep their eggs in one basket and they invested heavily in the United States and Europe. It is said that Moi has buildings in Toronto of which he's a landlord. Like Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Moi and Kenyatta made sure that the assets were securely locked into family hands and when Kenyatta passed away, his wealth was safely transferred to his third wife, Mama Ngina, together with her children. Moi had done exactly the same, transferring assets and holdings to the names of his sons.

And so we come back to the same question, while all this is going on, what his happening to the common man? To the Kenyan on the street? Kenyatta should have known better. He was an academic and had studied in Britain (like Mugabe) and seen how the democratic process is an enabler for everyone. As an anthropologist he should have known that petty politics, the politics of feudalism doesn't work for the betterment of the entire society and that for a country to succeed, it must engage all of it's citizens. But his education didn't help, like Mugabe's, leads us to ask if there's something else at play here. It isn't the gullibility of the population, because they see it, or do they? The people, the Africans, they are unable to coalesce into a resistance unless things become unbearable. At that time, the wound is a festering boiling bulb with the puss ready to explode. Kenya almost reached that point in 1982. Zimbabwe obviously hasn't reached that point yet. Moi's case is particularly annoying since he obtained a country on a downward spiral, one that he could have stopped. Kenyatta received a country with infrastructure, a country with a small, but sizeable intellectual group. People who could have helped nourish the potential. Yet that didn't happen. And when Moi ascended to the throne, the roads continued to dilapidate, hospital services continued to decline, the birth rate in the country rose to be the highest in the world with a denser population of poor people. All the while, Moi was riding around in his state Mercedes and living in luxury. Amassing wealth in various countries and continuing on the legacy of oppression and economic decline.

Like Mugabe, Tonyleeks has learnt that Moi's election results were all rigged. Dead voters were resurrected from the grave to turn out en-mass to vote for Moi. Unlike his successor, Moi's rigging was plainly obvious. The running joke was "why bother? He's going to win anyway!"

There's absolutely no reason for any of the African countries, who won their independence in the early 60's to be so primitively backward. Unfortunately one cannot put such high hopes on the ruling class. When it came to the fight for independence, goals were clear, the agenda was set and everyone had the same vision. Once the country had been handed over, they stood around, staring blankly at each other, and wondering what to do with all this newly acquired wealth. And like pigs to the trough, they dove in and fed.