Communication, messaging, whatever the latest sirkal buzzwords might be, must mean that what the government - and by government we mean the National Executive - is saying reflects largely what it is doing. My friend, Eric Ng'eno is the Senior Director of Messaging in the Strategic Communications Unit out of State House, Nairobi. (He'd want me to use the definite article and the "senior".) His boss - I think it is his boss - Manoah Esipisu is in charge of the whole kit and caboodle.
When it comes to saying things and writing things, Eric and his colleagues have not stuck their enormous feet in their mouths too many times. But when it comes to matching the spoken word and the written word to the deeds of the National Executive, the paths diverge - simply put, the massive machinery of the National Executive is determined to make liars of the hardworking people in the Strategic Communications Unit. (They really need to sit down with Alfred "Alfie" Mutua and discover the secret of coping in this snakepit.)
Eric and his colleagues face enormous challenges. First, the President doesn't seem to want a cheer squad with cameras like his predecessors did with their Presidential Press Units. He seems genuinely interested in communicating clearly and effectively with the people. Eric and his colleagues failed in their first strategic communications task - the Massive Egos in the civil service have done things a certain way since dinosaurs roamed the Earth and goddammit! they will continue doing so long after Eric and his colleagues have flounced off back to the private sector where they rightly belong. And they can leave poor Manoah alone; he did not deserve to be stuck with the lumpen elements from #TeamJubilee who simply do not understand How Government Works. So long as the President doesn't tell the Massive Egos in the civil service that they must stop their nauseating obsequiousness, they will resist all entreaties from #TeamDigital to move with the times and instead, they will commiserate with the long suffering Manoah, who is really their boon friend when you think about it.
Second, even if Eric & Co somehow managed to get everyone to sing from the same songbook - spout the same bland message with the same pretend degree of enthusiasm without looking as if they would rather eat sand - they would come up against another iron law of the civil service: people with real power in the government will say what they are ordered to say but do what they want, fuck the consequences. The President has real power and because he is the president, we don't want idiots taking pot shots at him with AK-47s on his way to work so we gave him a massive armoured cavalcade. But carrying on a tradition started by Baba Jimmi, he moved his official office from Harambee House to State House, thereby sparing thousands of Kenyatta Avenue - Uhuru Highway - Parliament Road - Harambee Avenue commuters the hassle of having to make way for his cavalcade. That was a positive message. It made people think that the President was a considerate man.
His Cabinet and sub-cabinet minions do not seem to see it quite like that. Eric will pretend that the message is not getting garbled but when assholes with Cabinet and sub-cabinet rank push us around because they think they have real power, the message is garbled. If the boss won't push us around even when he could, why should minions think that the same rule does not apply to them? And why do they even have such revoltingly ostentatious cavalcades when the President is urging us towards greater national austerity in the name of economic growth? Eric must be told - the message is being garbled by assholes in civil servants' clothing.
Third, even if they have to engage in a little #TeamJubilee political burnishing, surely Eric and his colleagues can tone down the extreme rhetoric a bit. They really should spend a bit more time getting the entire firmament of the National Executive communicating in one basic style; we can't have the aforementioned assholes making decisions over how certain sensitive or politically hair-raising information will be conveyed to the general public without firm guidance. After all since they tend to behave like children, it is only proper that there be adult supervision of the whole lot. Sure, the Strategic Communications Unit will be accused of being a ministry of Propaganda, but that is what it is - and propaganda is not necessarily a bad thing, never mind the genocidal tendencies of the Third Reich.
Finally, Eric & Co have to answer the one question governments always try to answer: do they love us? I belong to a very large constituency: employed with a fair take home package; unburdened with the responsibilities of automotive ownerships; possessed of largely good health; professionally situated in the surprisingly quiet Harambee Avenue. In other words, I commute to and from the office part of the way on foot and part of the way in Nairobi's not-as-notorious-as-they-once-were matatus. There is little Eric can do about that particular tribe of automobiles; but his Unit can make the lives of the walking masses easier which will engender positive thoughts about his President (my President too) and make the job of selling #TeamJubilee slightly less onerous. They can do this by reversing their obsession with "security" and ordering every public or private institution in Nairobi, including Harambee House, Harambee House Annexe and the massive edifice that is Kencom, to give the people back their pavements. We have no desire to play chicken with tonnes of automotive steel; our lives are hard enough already.
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