President William Samoei Ruto during a visit in Kiamaiko and Mathare in Nairobi County to assess effects of floods on the area residents. PHOTO/PRESIDENCY
By MORRIS ODHIAMBO
It has been almost one month of destruction, displacement, destitution, and death in some parts of Kenya. Many have died. Many have lost their properties and belongings.
Many have lost their ability to feed and fend for themselves. Many have been displaced. Many have sought shelter in schools. Second term school opening has been postponed twice, disrupting the education calendar.
The usual promises have been made by President William Ruto and his ministers, punctuated by threats from the Ministry of Interior and National Administration, which handles the internal security docket.
Threats of violence, and actual violence, have become a key feature of the governance of the Kenya Kwanza regime, suggesting a lingering legitimacy deficit, which can only be filled, in the regime’s thinking, through the use of violence.
People have been evicted from at least two informal settlements, with tragic consequences. These actions have proved once again, the point that the character of the Kenyan state, and the nature of power relations within it, are not ready to accommodate humane evictions, especially of the poor and vulnerable, as envisaged by UN eviction guidelines.
In Mukuru and Mathare slums, at least three people were killed, leading to protests and subsequent arrest of 27 social rights activists. The arrest of the activists raised a furore, happening as it did, just about the same time as a major meeting of the United Nations and civil society was underway in Gigiri, the UN headquarters in Nairobi.
To compensate for its obviously highhandedness, recapture the framing of the political narrative and appease the global community assembled at Gigiri, the state quickly gazetted the Public Benefits Organisations (PBO) Act, whose commencement has been pending since 2013!
As happens during crises like the ongoing floods, more weaknesses of the state were revealed. A dam collapsed at the end of April, killing at least 40 people in the town of Mai Mahiu, some 50 kilometres from Nairobi.
The incident reminded observers of the yet to be resolved Solai dam tragedy, in 2018, in which 48 people died. Furthermore, a five-storey building collapsed in Uthiru area in Kiambu, a few minutes drive from Nairobi’s Central Business District.
The human rights fraternity mourned and buried Mama Victor (real name Ms. Benna Buluma) whose dwellings were swept away by floods. Mama Victor’s tragic death was a tragedy grafted, literally, on top of another tragedy. Until her death, Mama Victor had spent seven years trying to secure justice for her two sons killed by suspected police officers during the post-2017 election violence.
One more point. Even though Kenya boasts a national infrastructure mandated with disaster management, the management of disasters is often outsourced to non-state actors such as the Kenya Red Cross Society, the Kenyan affiliate of the global Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
As a matter of fact, it would not be far from the truth to assert that the Kenya Red Cross Society “replaces” the state when it comes to disaster management. The irony is that the Red Cross Society in Kenya can not muster even a “millionth” of the resources that are available to the state!
The state’s reaction to the flooding menace, including Professor Kindiki’s threats and the promises made by President Ruto (essentially part of a ritual whenever tragedies occur), brought out the systemic nature of Kenya’s troubles, not only with floods, but with a myriad other challenges that can only be understood within a broader framework. This brings us to the focus of my article today: the topic of “state capacity”.
President William Samoei promised that alternative settlement to the 40,000 displaced households in Kiamaiko and Mathare in Nairobi County will be offered. PHOTO/PRESIDENCY
When I started researching on state capacity, I did not know it would bring me even closer to some of the key theoretical and conceptual frameworks that have informed my approach to analysing the state in Africa since I started this series of reflections in 2023.
State capacity can be defined as the state’s ability to formulate and implement public policy, so as to meet the goals of state building, in particular, providing an environment for citizens to realise their livelihoods.
The key advantage of applying the state capacity lens to understand the state in Africa is that it both historicises and contextualises the challenges facing the state.
It ties the historical problems of imperialism, neo-liberal globalisation and the dependent character of the state in Africa, to the present challenges of leadership, corruption, allocation and mis-allocation of resources, and the question of legitimacy, to create a more wholesome understanding.
In a paper written in 2008 by Nigerian Professor, Liasu Adele Jinadu, titled “Globalisation and State Capacity in Africa”, the author argues that it is the “contradictions, arising from the lingering or residual colonial inheritance of Africa from earlier imperialist processes of globalization, which are at the heart of the problem of state capacity in Africa.”
Applying Pan Africanist lenses to his analysis, Professor Jinadu further points out that, “Historically, globalization has divided and balkanized African countries, carving out political, economic and cultural spheres of influence, and weakening their ability to act collectively to defend their common interests.”
He adds, that, “colonial rule underdeveloped the colony’s human and physical resource endowment; so much so that after decades of colonization, the multitude of children in the streets is greater than those in the classrooms; the number of hospital beds is pitiful compared with the number of the sick; the purpose of the highway system is without regard to the needs of the colonised but absolutely in line with those of the coloniser.”
Professor Jinadu ends his paper by calling for, among others, collective action by African states to “confront the challenges of globalisation” by “democratising decision-making, and public political processes within their member-states to enhance state capacity in various sectors.”
“These efforts should end up in open, participatory, and socially inclusive political systems, as important conditions for expanding and consolidating state capacity on a sustainable basis in Africa,” he concludes.
As this article has aptly demonstrated, the recent floods have exposed the weaknesses of the Kenyan state in fundamental ways, even though Kenya is not the only country affected. The state has reacted to the crisis in its traditional ways: threats, warnings, inhumane eviction of the poor, arrests of protesters, etc.
All these methods are not geared towards building the capacity of the state to deal better with such calamities in the future. They are merely reactionary and, therefore, not capable of dealing with the historical and structural problems that bedevil the state.
In discussing the situation and bringing out the various nuances in the conversation, this article highlights the need to focus on building state capacity.
This can be achieved through radial reforms within the state and collective action at the continental level as envisaged by Professor Jinadu. Clearly, the work of local activists, as well as serious Pan Africanists (not sloganeers!), is well cut out, so to speak!
The writer is a scholar, journalist, writer, and social rights defender. He is the founding Vice-Chairman and a member of the Diplomacy Scholars Association of Kenya (DIPSAK).
