African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Kenyans should stop this fetishization of devolution – By Abdullahi Boru Halakhe

Kenyans should stop this fetishization of devolution – By Abdullahi Boru Halakhe

By Uncategorised
August 28, 2013
1947
0
Odinag_devolution

Defeated Presidential candidate Raila Odinga has called for a referendum to change aspects of the constitution that make devolution ineffective.

The petty and sometimes artificial dichotomy between pro and anti-devolution groups has stymied any meaningful and substantive discussions regarding the issue. While there are historical reasons for the pro-anti divide, the near doctrinal attachment to this line by all concerned (including the media) when discussing devolution, has fostered an atmosphere of false equivalence. It is about time we transcended these entrenched positions if the country is ever to reap any benefit arising from devolution.

Since the passage of the Kenya’s federalist constitution, devolution has been heralded as the panacea of all the ills bedeviling the country. But the citizens’ tremendous hopes have been held hostage by fighting within the political elite. Because of entrenched positions, any suggestions concerning the complexity and nuances of devolution de facto have earned one the anti-devolution tag.

Before the 2013 elections, enormous energy was expended on the ICC cases, which the president clearly stated was a “personal challenge.” The time spent debating the ICC could have been used to discuss devolution. Failure to examine issues of implementation fueled the public’s irrational exuberance over what devolution can actually deliver.

After the elections, the county governors’ ostentatious budgets received blanket coverage, and have been conveniently used by others as an argument against devolution. MPs inaugurated the era of lavish salaries for public figures, and the country, except for a few protests, has learnt to live with it. However, blowing the issue of county budgets out of proportion misses the point; the debate should be about how devolution can be rolled out.

Undoubtedly, there are political elites, civil servants, and powerful interests who are uninterested in devolution, and they have attempted to derail its implementation; especially at the national level allowing the central government to retain overarching control over county finances. Their argument is that the counties do not have the requisite capacity to absorb all the money budgeted; the counties need to be under the central government’s tutelage until they become strong enough to undertake some of the critical functions.

On the face of it, these arguments sound valid. However, if the problem of the counties is lack of capacity, isn’t the solution building their capacity, rather than using that as an excuse to delay implementation of devolution? The fear of this group rests on the assumption that the counties will become new centers of powers that will usurp their wealth and influence. These efforts will not succeed because devolution is anchored in the constitution and there is a tremendous support for it.

Where the anti–devolution group is planning on derailing the process, the pro-devolution group has not helped their own cause. Their latest effort is the push by the Coalition of Reform and Democracy (CORD), led by Raila Odinga, to call for a referendum to emend sections of the constitution that make devolution ineffective. Odinga urged senators to expedite the process of collecting a million signatures to call for a referendum for amending contentious articles of the constitution.  This latest effort is another sideshow that takes valuable time away from discussing the germane issues.

Lumping the referendum to amend the constitution with another campaign to redress the “tyranny of numbers” – reducing national elections into an ethnic census – is another distraction.  Regardless of the merit of this effort, it will always suffer from an image problem of being associated with Odinga, and the inescapable conclusion of it being another attempt by a sore loser to try and get his way. Further, it smacks of a “culture of arrogance” and entitlement that dominates the activists who consider they have the monopoly of reform by being at the forefront of 1990 reform movement.

Someone should remind Odinga and his team that they do not own devolution; devolution belongs to Kenyans, including those who elected Ruto and Kenyatta. Ruto and Kenyatta might lack strong reform credentials; Ruto opposed the passage of this constitution during the referendum in 2010. But they are the ones who are now calling for reform. Their appropriation of the reform discourse confirms that the reformers defending decentralization are still struggling to adjust to the new reality of Kenyatta’s presidency.

With or without the Odinga and Kenyatta story line, there is a need for focused discussions on the mechanics of implementing devolution instead of reducing it to a fetish to score political goals.

Abdullahi Boru Halakhe is a Horn of Africa Analyst.

Previous Article

Are Jacks of All Trades Trading Down ...

Next Article

A Conversation at the Airport or What ...

Uncategorised

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • In Kampala at an e-mobility parade in November 2021. Credit: Tom Courtright.
    SocietyUganda

    Uganda’s boda bodas: loved, hated, maligned, misunderstood

  • A female farmer clears a plot in Mozambique. Credit: Jeffrey Barbee/Thomson Reuters Foundation.
    ClimateMozambiqueOn Food Security & COVID19

    Mozambique: The farmers navigating conflict, climate change and Covid

  • NigeriaPolitics

    Nigeria: Buhari’s government begins to take shape, but it’s not over yet

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter


  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • We’ve already breached most of the Earth’s limits. How can we get back?
  • Africa’s topsy-turvy food paradox
  • Zambia: The president’s five-point plan to stay in power at all costs
  • The two defining challenges facing South Africa
  • ‘Don’t Agonize, Organize!’ Remembering Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem’s Advocacy on Sudan

Editor’s Picks

#EndSARSEditor's PicksNigeriaPolitics

What is the legacy of #EndSARS?

“We owe the dead the debt of memory.”  A little past 9pm on 21 September 2021, Salako Pelumi and his friend John, both students of the University of Ilorin, were ...
  • South Africa: Meet the queer vloggers taking back the narrative

    By Grant Andrews
    March 4, 2021
  • What does it mean to decolonise BDSM? 

    By Thandiwe Ntshinga
    May 21, 2021
  • The World Bank recently held its 2023 Spring Meetings, in which climate change was high on the agenda. Credit: Photo: World Bank / Simone D. McCourtie.

    Is the World Bank really going green?

    By Heike Mainhardt
    April 25, 2023
  • Asian-African

    It’s time to confront anti-Blackness in Asian-African communities

    By Sabrina Mahtani
    August 5, 2020

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.