There is the technical definition of politics. There's the legal definition. But these mean little in Kenya; politics infuses anything and everything touching on the reputation of those in power, those close to them and those that wish they were in power. In our country today even the most mundane of matters has been "politicised' to put it in the parlance of the punditocracy.
In recent weeks there have been claims that a Cabinet Secretary is being protected in regards to financial scams at her ministry. Whether this is true or not, the matter has attracted the attention, and acerbic tongue, of the doyen of opposition politics, Raila Odinga. As is common when such allegations are levelled against a senior government official, there have emerged two camps: for and against the Cabinet Secretary. Pretty soon enough the lawyers will get involved, but I digress.
What should concern us is the way we have completely elided the loss of hundreds of millions of shillings. Without a doubt, the Cabinet Secretary has comported herself with dignity in this whole saga. Those for or against her have not acquitted themselves well. When she discovered that there were unusual goings on at her ministry she did not sit on her hands. She informed the authorities she believed were best set up to investigate the matter. She informed the Director of Criminal Investigations of her suspicions and invited his agency to investigate. The investigation has uncovered malfeasance, according to the DCI, and scores of suspects.
I do not hold brief for the embattled Cabinet Secretary nor for her beleaguered supporters. Nor do I take the extremist position of her worst detractors. I am, however, curious about what makes the comfortably neutral to declare, "Don't politicise the investigations." In Kenya, when it involves a Cabinet Secretary, it is impossible not to politicise it. This Cabinet Secretary, especially, has proven to be possessed of political instincts that have raised hackles in certain quarters. He apparent close working relationship ith the President has helped; but her overlordship of one of the largest public departments, the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, dealing with such disparate matters as economic planning and the National Youth Service means that she is quite possibly second to the President in her scope of responsibilities, and that gives her enormous political clout.
In Kenya it is inevitable that everything will be politicised. That is just the nature of things. Instead of whinging piteously, perhaps it is time we found ways of making this politicisation work for us. There are those, for example, in the Senate who still live in a world where a mjumbe was a man of portentous clout. Some have been whining, in the Senate Chamber no less, about how the Governor of Machakos "disrespected" their Speaker while at a rally-cum-funeral. These men are living in the past. These men have about as much political clout as a passing cumulonimbus. They are in dire need of lessons in the politicisation of things without coming across as crybabies.
When we politicise things, blood frequently flows on the streets, because our style of politicisation is a winner-takes-all, balls-to-the-wall, shoot-'em-all-let-god-sort-it-out kind of thing. It displays very little nuance. It is championed by the least politically literate among us. If we could somehow elevate the level of political debate among the political classes, sifting the illiterate chaff from the erudite wheat, perhaps we may yet restore politics to its rightful place as one of the pillars of national unity. If not, I fear, there will be more whinging from the growing ranks of the thin-skinned swanning around in their wounded pride in the Eleventh.
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