African Politics: What is the Real Enigma?

Published on 17th July 2006

“My views may not be in consonance with some of you but the person of Raila has definitely answered to the call of Kenya’s ideals. Amollo is Kenya’s voice of reason; courageous captain; isle of ingenuity; voice of the voiceless; shield to the defenseless; patriot; pan-africanist and above all, Kenya’s beacon of hope,” thundered Dr.Tom Namwambah in his keynote address during the launch of Raila Odinga’s biography.

Raila’s father, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga also authored a book Not Yet Uhuru. "That freedom remains unachieved today. There is no freedom for one man without freedom for all," said the  Kenyatta University don.

“I am glad to have been born in the Odinga family. I am so proud of my father’s legacy,” said Raila Odinga who described Raila Odinga: An Enigma in Kenyan Politics by Babafemi A. Badejo as “an effort by blind men to describe an elephant.” He added that the book was a curtain raiser to his autobiography to be released at the end of this year.

The launch which was held in Nakumatt Junction supermarket in the NuMetro cinema along Ngong road was more than symbolic. Kenyan politicians will be going back to the marketplace to seek reelection from consumers who are in a junction to determine which direction their country should take.

Like the rest of Africa, they have watched their legislators act in the movie of big government, abuse of property rights, neglect of rule of law and coercion. In the words of Dr. Tom Namwambah, there is great disparity between “those who command and those who serve; those who use others at their will and those who must submit; the haves and the have nots; the venomous snakes and the snake rattlers that succumb to incessant biting”.

“I am for total emancipation from ignorance, poverty and disease,” said Raila. “The struggle to retain the status quo continues. It has led to assassinations, but I look forward to a Kenya where there is equal opportunity for all from cradle to grave; I look forward to a Kenya where women are emancipated; I envisage a Kenya where youth participate in development; a Kenya full of employment instead of retrenchment; a Kenya where I defend your right to speak although I don’t agree with you with you; a Kenya where natural and human resources are developed; a Kenya that will join first world countries!”

Africa needs change. It is common to throw people out when things go wrong in government. Nobody disputes the fact that government operations require capable and experienced people. But do we need the right people in office?

Who is greater in an ocean liner? The captain? The navigator setting direction? The engineer down- stoking the fire? The social director- making sure everybody’s enrolled, involved and communicating? To some extent, yes. But no one has more sweeping influence than the neglected designer. It is futile for the captain to say, “turn the starboard thirty degrees” when the designer has built a starboard rudder that will only turn to port or which takes six hours to turn starboard.

When governments expand beyond their rightful limits, problems arise that have little to do with competence and abilities of employees. Replacing employees only delays addressing the question of what the government should or should not do. When government is limited to its rightful role of peacekeeping and promoting liberty, people will find ways of dealing with problems and promises that the government has promised to solve and meet.

Shinyalu constituency in Western Kenya is famed for never allowing MPs to serve  more than two terms…. Why? The candidates would promise “heaven” but unleash “hell” once in power. Some regions voted in a prophetess and bishop to the august house. They thought that these would restore sanity in the nation through alliance with the divine. What happened? Their would be saviours drowned in the status quo.

It is not an Alice Lakwena with magic water or Joseph Kony with the Ten Commandments that Africa needs. Excessive government is always run bureaucratically. Bureaucratic management has no cash value on the market. It is bound to comply with detailed rules and regulations fixed by an authoritative body.

“The task of a bureaucrat,” says Ludwig Van Mises “is to perform what these rules and regulations order him to do. His discretion to act according to his own best conviction is seriously restricted.”

Africa does not need all powerful Czars. They turn out to be no more effective than the Russian rulers after whom the term was coined. A former entrepreneur who is given a government bureau to run is no longer a businessman but a bureaucrat. His objective is not profit but compliance to rules and regulations beyond his control.

The intellectual folly of our age is the view that democratic elections alone will establish an environment conducive to economic progress. Both history and political theory indicate that this view is false. If government is going to be a positive force for economic property, the rules of the political game must be designed to bring the self-interest of voters, politicians and bureaucrats into harmony with economic progress. This will require that the scope of government be limited and that government remain neutral among the various sub-groups of citizens.

It is one thing to determine our political leaders by majority vote and another to determine what government will do by majority rule. It is limited government, not majority rule, that is the key to economic progress.


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