Nerima Wako is a political analyst and executive director of Siasa Place. I interviewed her to seek her opinion on the recent election in terms of how they were conducted as well as on other issues such as women’s participation in politics.
There are some Kenyans who believe that Kenyans identifying with their tribe is a cause for disunity among us and denouncing one’s tribe is a sort of panacea to our problems. What are your thoughts about that?
The issue of tribalism unfortunately is not unique to Kenya, but to several African countries – we can look at our next door neighbors such as South Sudan. However, what we can see in terms of relation is that tribe is often times linked and correlated to access to resources. Before devolution, when all processes were centralized from the capital city, you tend to find that regions closer to the city are more developed compared to areas further away. That is where marginalization begins to reveal its ugly head. But, in time through devolution we begin to see development in areas that are often forgotten. Minority tribes for instance have access to a road which for some areas in this country is a thing of the past. So we can not take that for granted, the apparent division between counties when it comes to economic investments by government. When we talk about being tribless, I believe tribe is beautiful they bring diversity which in the end is the flavor to a country. However, looking at my own upbringing, my father is from Western, my mother is from the Coast, my nephews have Kamba and my niece Kikuyu. Once, my 7 year old niece asked me what tribe she is – her name is Luyha but her blood is several tribes – I told her Kenyan. So in a sense I can relate to a tribeless Kenya, but I don’t think it should be an escape. I love the different aspects of my family wouldn’t want it to be eradicated.
What are the implications of a country’s ignorance of its political history? And how do you think the current education curriculum of Kenya perpetuates this ignorance of our collective identity and the roles we play as citizens?
A country that does not know and understand her history is one that will struggle to look forward and have a vision for future. It will be difficult to aim as a nation to aspire when we hardly understand where we have come from. One thing that will be apparent soon is the disengagement from public participation. Kenyans are very ambitious as a people. In fact you can travel around the world and find a Kenyan who is performing well in some sector. So we are hard working people. However, it is also a country where we let ‘others’ lead. Politics is so dirty that we have let it to the strong willed and sometimes those who we call ‘mad’ to take leadership positions. Many young people have told me that they would like to enter politics but their families are first to discourage them, followed by friends and politicians themselves. Education definitely plays a major role in molding a society – our education does not put emphasis on the building of a nation. The responsibilities or duties that we play as citizens. We seem to have a vacuum when it comes to that. Learn these things as we get older but mainly those who have interests in such matters. What you begin to see is people disengaging. Where they do not see the need to vote for instance. To engage or understand policy, to think about you elect to represent you..I always tell young people, its great that you want to go and start a business. But, guess what? If this country is not stable… you will not have a place to build a business.
What is your opinion on local media’s coverage of the general election and the aftermath?
The election was held with gloves this time around. You could tell that stations or different channels were hesitant to “break news” there seemed to be a waiting game going on. But can you really only blame our media houses? In 2007/ 2008 they were blamed for airing too much information and detail and some argue that it is the media that fueled the violence. In a sense you could tell that media houses were a lot more hesitant about what to air and when this time around.
Do you think our distraction by the #githeriman hype in the midst of an election could be a sign that as a nation, we are becoming apathetic to our country’s politics?
I think that githeriman was an escape for many people. Something to laugh about, to distract us. In 2015 a video went viral that I was in “How angry are Kenyans?” and I said the same thing. I talked about how there was so much corruption in certain counties but people still found ways to joke about it by sending messages, jokes and memes on social media and whatsapp. Its escapism. We are genuinely exhausted. This election many of us were anxious and nervous not quite sure what the outcome would be – so we use humor to cover up a lot of things that bother us.
This past election has seen more women elected to parliament. Would you say the political climate is becoming more favorable for women’s participation? What more needs to be done to increase this participation?
This year we are going to see 3 women as Governors, this is historic – a good step but not good enough. We still need more women more to fill those positions.. Let’s think about the figures; When we look at the number of people who ran in 2013, (these are estimations) we had about 11,000 who were vying for elective seats, 10,000 out of that number were men. Only about 1000 were women. If we look at 2017, where we had about 14,000 people vying for elective seats 2077 were women. Comparatively speaking, women are lagging behind. In terms of participation, we have seen an increment, about double – however we have seen that the disparity between the two is still drastically large. What we need to work on is how we view women politicians. We discourage women from participating from politics and social structures make it difficult for women to vie for seats.
What are your thoughts on how IEBC handled the general election. Before, during and after?
IEBC really tried to get different stakeholders involved in the process. Though with our interactions on the ground, some people would say that IEBC did not do enough. It was a tall order and we have to recognize that they made strides in a short period of time. They also used creative methods to educate such as short videos to share on WhatsApp or cartoons for a more youthful audience, so the good will was there. During the election – information was not dispersed how people expected. There were complaints of conglomerated results – making it difficult to track where they were streaming in from. Then we cannot forget the Form 34 B’s! Some were uploaded to the system, which looked questionable. Then when people raised the alarm -they mysteriously disappeared. There are technicalities which could have been handled much better. We also cannot forget the brutal murder of Chris Msando which has left several questions. Additionally, the murder of Caroline Odinga who was an IEBC officer and the suicide of another. We should be concerned with these occurrences and raise questions about them.
Why do you think since Kenya’s elections always end up in violence? Could it just be dissatisfaction in the electoral process or it an eruption of a much bigger problem?
Most of our elections have actually ended up being contested, sadly majority of the time a petition ends up at court. It is interesting to see that after each court ruling we modify our electoral process. The Elections Act for instance is a product of such. We find more ways to reduce chances of manipulation but we seem to always find ourselves at square one, new ways of manipulation. One thing is for sure, we have to build trust in our electoral process. Most of us do not trust the systems. Then we have to face tension right after an election. It is simply the transition of power and resources. Kenya is not unique to this, several African countries face violence after an election. When systems have not been put in place to support even distribution of resources, there will always be violence. Groups will begin to feel marginalized and an animosity will grow if not taken to account. Devolution should help reduce the scramble for power, but then again only time will tell.
What is your opinion on the use of excessive force by the police to handle the post election process?
The loss of life was tragic and even worse is the fact that it was young life – we have children who have died and we still do not have answers to that. It is unfortunate and someone must be held accountable. There was definitely much more security this time around and it was visible which I believe instilled a small sense of fear. The fact that we were previously assured that no bullets were used only to find out later that life was indeed lost was not handled well. People do not need to be kill, even when you constantly utilize the excuse that they are hooligans and looters, then arrest them and use the proper legal systems to charge them, not kill.