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CONSTITUTIONALISM FOR CONVENIENCE: How Kenyan Presidents Have Subverted The Supreme Law
During a transition into a new presidential tenure such as Kenya is going through at this point in 2017, it is expected that people – certainly government and governance scholars – will review the outgoing tenure so as to highlight the needs of the incoming tenure. If such reviews become a habit, then the next logical step is to review the comparative performances of presidents and/or presidencies over the years, with a view to assessing aspirants for suitability.
The mutations to the independence gave much power to the Executive relative to the Legislature and Judiciary: all public servants were employed "during the pleasure of the President", which bred extensive impunity in the upper echelons of the Executive. That the reformist 2010 Constitution, designed to put paid to such potential Executive excess, has failed to do so reflects, inter alia, the depths to which the roots of impunity had sunk during the initial 47 years of independence.[1] That impunity is alive and well in and around the presidency, is elaborately manifest even in the persisting illegalities and irregularities surrounding the transition to a new presidential tenure. This is an indicator of the nature of disposition to constitutionalism.
The global literature illustrates varied approaches to evaluating presidents and/or presidencies, such as through the analyses of speech content, performance of the economy, and opinion poll ratings, amongst others. These listed approaches are more amenable to the evaluation of developed country contexts where such data is habitually gathered; but this is not the case for developing country contexts, such as Kenya. For the latter countries, presidential speeches are based on opportunistic political expediency rather than on the individual's beliefs; economies are disproportionately driven by exogenous rather than endogenous factors; and opinion polls are excessively subjective. However, a useful yardstick with which to compare president or presidencies is fidelity to the constitution of the day, which is supposed to be the social contract with the citizens of the country. Given the respective contexts within which Kenya's independence and 2010 constitutions were made, it is reasonable to expect greater fidelity to the latter which arguably carries greater legitimacy.
However, a useful yardstick with which to compare president or presidencies is fidelity to the constitution of the day, which is supposed to be the social contract with the citizens of the country.
The making of Kenya's independence constitution was chaperoned by the British, with delegates from the colony abiding by the tradition of attending talks at Lancaster House in London. Despite the British government's declared 'wind of change' sweeping in independence for its colonies, its kith in Kenya, the White settlers, briefly contemplated a 'unilateral declaration of independence', which would have perpetuated the relative voiceless-ness of the majority African population.[2] But the Africans at the constitutional talks did not also speak with one voice: the self-serving settlers had successfully heightened the fears of the Africans from the smaller ethnic groups under the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) party, of domination by those from the two largest groups, the Kikuyu and Luo, who were grouped in the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party. Thus, broadly speaking, the independence constitution was the product of compromise among four delegations, rather than one between a united African front and the colonizer, Britain. In contrast, the making of the 2010 Constitution was a 'people-driven' comprehensive review process commenced in 1999, with a large number of delegates, 629 in total, attending the National Constitutional Conference at the Bomas of Kenya venue.
A dominant feature of Kenya's 27 constitutional changes between 1963 and 2008 was the centralization of power in the Executive, specifically on the President. Founding Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta – hereafter Kenyatta I – begun the cannibalization of the independence constitution as early as 1964, when he declared himself the President of the Republic of Kenya. The other 1964 changes also watered down the independence of regional governments, which were consequently killed in the next year. The 1966 changes ushered in dictatorship, amalgamating the Senate and National Assembly,[3] derogating rights and freedoms while also introducing detention without trial. Furthermore, 1966 saw the constitutional stifling of the Kenya People's Union (KPU) opposition party launched in 1965 and gave the President power to hire and fire all in the public service, while 1968 saw the abolition of independent candidates and provided for the President to be elected through a General Election, as opposed to election by the National Assembly, which made him politically independent of the latter. By 1969, the President had acquired the right to appoint the Electoral Commission of Kenya; but the need to rationalize these multiple amendments led to 'rebasing' the constitution on that year. Among the last of Kenyatta's 15-odd amendments would be one to allow him to pardon ex-Kapenguria detainee, Paul Ngei, and allow him to return to politics after he was convicted of an electoral offence.
Thus, broadly speaking, the independence constitution was the product of compromise among four delegations, rather than one between a united African front and the colonizer, Britain.
Among the more outstanding constitutional amendments of successor president Daniel Moi (1978-2002), was the infamous Article 2A of 1982, transforming the country into a de jure – by law – single party state that made KANU the Baba na Mama of all Kenyans. Another outstanding amendment was the 1991 repeal of the same Article 2A, which returned the country to multipartyism.[4] In between, 1986 witnessed the mischievous removal of security of tenure for the Attorney General and the Auditor and Controller General (CAG), and the increase of parliamentary constituencies to 188. Torture was allowed in 1987, while security of tenure for constitutional offices was removed in 1988. Security of tenure returned in 1990 amidst pressure for the opening up of democratic space for Kenyans; and in 1991 constituencies increased to 210.
While these constitutional gymnastics suggested regimes that were keen to be on the right side of the 'mother law', there was extensive repression in other realms, such as the 1980s onslaught against real or imagined Mwakenya and Pambana activists. The treatment of suspects, with several prosecutors and magistrates acting as the system's hatchet men, was in violation of the well-known and internationally accepted rights of people in such circumstances. And of course, there were several assassinations, among the better known ones being Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, J.M.Kariuki and Robert Ouko. The era saw many unexplained accidents, disappearances and extra-judicial killings. Additionally, individuals were 'dealt with' through various other means, such as a vocal Assistant Minister being imprisoned for violating foreign exchange regulations by inadvertently keeping some loose change after foreign trips.
The independence development blueprint, Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on African Socialism, had provided that scarce investment resources would be focused on "areas of greatest absorptive capacity", with surpluses being redistributed to the lower absorption parts of the country.[5] Growth occurred in fits and starts,[6] but there was little redistribution to the low absorption regions and communities previously overlooked by colonialism.[7] Instead, there was expropriation through harambee fund-raising for social sector investments even as the government extensively biased budget resource allocations. Thus, for example, public health care resources went disproportionately to the parts of the country that had a harambee capacity to build health facilities, rather than to those parts that had comparatively greater disease burdens, such as the malaria endemic regions. The net effect of such inequitable resource allocation have been the inequalities in health status, such as are reflected in the child mortality rates of Figure 1.[8]
Figure 1: Under-5 Mortality Rates by background characteristics, 2014
Source: KDHS, 2014
The illustration above of disregard for comparative development needs was given further impetus by both regimes' resort to parochialism – and indeed, nepotism – in key public appointments. Notwithstanding public employment being "during the pleasure of the President", it is difficult to imagine that any tenant of State House believed that the national interest was best served through excessively parochial public appointments. Table 1 shows that belonging to the president's ethnic group was significant for the distribution of cabinet positions, with ethnic shares fluctuating markedly depending on the president's ethnicity. And beyond merely having a cabinet position, ethnicity also determined which lucrative dockets went to whom. Such exalted positions enabled the illegal but unpunished diversion of Parliament-sanctioned development resources away from areas perceived hostile to the government to 'politically-correct' areas. The context also enabled self-aggrandisement with impunity since such individuals' closeness to the president protected against prosecution.[9] In any case, the annual CAG reports that would highlight such criminal misconduct would be several years behind schedule, complicating remedial action.[10]
Table 2: Ethnic shares of Kenyan cabinet positions and population (%)
|Ethnic group
|Kenyatta (Kikuyu)
|Moi (Kalenjin)
|Kibaki (Kikuyu)
|Share of population
The ad hoc reviews of the constitution led to internal contradictions; but weak fidelity to the letter of the document also opened up further opportunities for impunity. For example, the dividing line between KANU and the Executive increasingly became blurred over policy-making and implementation; and the context increasingly dictated the agendas of the Judiciary and Parliament. As reflected in the 1988 queue voting – mlolongo – exercise, democratic electioneering lost meaning: in instances, the shortest queue of supporters would be declared victorious. These contradictions led to extensive demands for a comprehensive review of the constitution in the run-up to the 1997 general elections. The brutal response of the government was most vividly captured in the police invasion of the inner sanctum of the All Saints Cathedral into which they lobbed tear gas against demonstrators. The stand-off was eventually resolved through the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group (IPPG) process, which was able to extract modest reforms from the government, such as the inclusion of opposition in nominating members of the electoral commission hitherto appointed exclusively by the President.[11] While Moi retained power at the election, the seed of change had been sown;[12] sustained internal and external pressure for a comprehensive constitutional review led to the Bomas of Kenya conference launched in 2003.[13]
While these constitutional gymnastics suggested regimes that were keen to be on the right side of the 'mother law', there was extensive repression in other realms, such as the 1980s onslaught against real or imagined Mwakenya and Pambana activists.
The shenanigans around the constitution review process are well documented: suffice it to say that it took 10 years of back and forth, and critically, over 1,300-odd deaths and half-a-million internal displacements during the 2007/08 post-election violence, to focus the government on the delivery of a new constitution.
IPPG had not convinced Moi of the need for comprehensive change; so he had set about co-opting perceived ethnic chiefs into KANU to diffuse the growing clamour for an end to Nyayoism. In a perverse way, that Moi strategy probably made a major contribution to liberating Kenya from his clutches, even if his empire would later strike back. Moi's strategy culminated in the Kasarani Stadium conference at which he declared a comparative political nonentity, Uhuru Kenyatta, to be his heir.[14] That action sparked a revolt that passed through various political outfits to coalesce in the exceedingly ethnically broad-based and popular National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party. This was the party that brought Kibaki to the presidency in 2003, with a promise of a new constitution in 100 days.
Yet if the promised NARC revolution had got rid of Moi and his preferred heir, Kenyans would soon realise that Moi-ism – the disregard for constitutional, policy and legal frameworks – had merely acquired a new face; and there were hints of a reinvention of the autocracy of Kenyatta I. Of the 'new constitution within a 100 days', a leading Kibaki ally would declare that there had been nothing wrong with the existing constitution, and that changes to it had only been desired as a means of getting rid of Moi. The growing indiscretions of the Kibaki faction in NARC meant that the party soon imploded,[15] even as that faction set about manipulating the Bomas Draft Constitution to perpetuate the status quo. These divisions set the stage for the 2005 national referendum defeat of Kibaki's preferred version of the proposed constitution, which in turn set Kenya on the road to the disputed 2007 presidential elections, and the violence the followed in its wake.[16]
As reflected in the 1988 queue voting – mlolongo – exercise, democratic electioneering lost meaning: in instances, the shortest queue of supporters would be declared victorious.
Notwithstanding the unprecedented horror surrounding it, the 2007-08 post-election violence had a silver lining: its resolution by the Kofi Anna-led African Union's Panel of Eminent Personalities led to, amongst other things, the institution of Agenda Item 4 of 2008 – the basis of long term governance reforms in the country.[17] A newly independent African country's primary ambition must surely be the transformation of the state (constitution), boundaries and peoples into a nation-state. One might try to explain Kenyatta I's failures in this respect on his old age and his being overwhelmed by the very idea of 'independence' (self-rule); and Moi's failure on his narrow world view that limited exposure to ideas, such as nation-hood. But neither explanation could hold for the much younger, more educated, and indeed cosmopolitan Kibaki's failure to realise the dreams of the NARC revolution. And Kibaki's failure to grasp the remedial opportunity provided by Agenda 4 underscored his lack of fortitude and his ethnic insularity. A president offered great opportunities proved entirely ineffectual.
So ineffectual was Kibaki that he largely seemed to have slept through the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments of Kenyans adjudged to have had the greatest responsibility for the 2007/08 post-election violence.[18] But Kibaki did have reason to let sleeping dogs lie, even as Moreno Ocampo muddled his way through the early ICC processes: the National Intelligence Service's (NIS) evidence to the Waki Commission was that Kibaki's National Security Council (NSC) had been regularly briefed on people arming themselves for violence after the elections. If NSI's evidence was true – and nobody denied it – then the NSC chair should have been first on the plane to ICC: he knew of impending violence, and failed to contain the threat despite having both the constitutional obligation and the means with which to do so.
Yet if the promised NARC revolution had got rid of Moi and his preferred heir, Kenyans would soon realise that Moi-ism – the disregard for constitutional, policy and legal frameworks – had merely acquired a new face; and there were hints of a reinvention of the autocracy of Kenyatta I.
Among the distinguishing acts of the Kibaki presidency was his rampant creation of unconstitutional administrative districts. In 1997, Kibaki's Democratic Party had won a High Court action against President Moi for creating some 30-odd "unconstitutional districts", which the judge did not dissolve because it was the eve of a general election premised on those very districts. Yet during his presidency, right up to the 2010 promulgation of the new constitution, Kibaki created over 200 new, similarly unconstitutional districts,[19] which the new Constitution duly abolished by transforming the constitutional 47 into counties.
Among Agenda 4's objectives was the time-bound promulgation of a new constitution, which Kibaki hardly campaigned for ahead of the national referendum on it. That the Constitution (2010) is transformative is indisputable: while Chapter 1 of the 2008 version of the independence constitution says nothing about the people of Kenya before launching into the greatness of the President, Article 1 of Constitution (2010) conditions the presidency on the will of the people in declaring as follows:
"(1) All sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be exercised only in accordance with this Constitution5)
(2) The people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or through their democratically elected representatives."
Having declared as such, the Constitution (2010) further takes power away from the President in three important respects: (i) it underscores the separation of powers between the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature (Article 1(3)); (ii) instead of all public servants being employed "during the pleasure of the President", key public offices are filled through people-driven processes as well as protected against external interference (Articles 160, 228, 229, and Chapter 13, etc); and (iii) it creates the national and county levels of government which "are distinct and inter-dependent and shall conduct their mutual relations on the basis of consultation and cooperation (Articles 6 and 189)."
Kibaki's failure to grasp the remedial opportunity provided by Agenda 4 underscored his lack of fortitude and his ethnic insularity. A president offered great opportunities proved entirely ineffectual.
A further driver of impunity and parochialism under the independence constitution had been the central control of government resources began by Kenyatta I's 1964 constitutional amendments that took service delivery and revenue generation functions away from the regions. However, the Constitution (2010) proved true to the principles of effective fiscal decentralization: its Fourth Schedule divided functions between the National and County Governments; and Chapter 12 on Public Finance ensures that money (resources) follows the Fourth Schedule's division of labour.
As noted above, the Kibaki regime was not overly pleased with the governance changes occasioned by the new constitution,[20] especially devolution which would take "at least 15 percent of national revenue" out of Treasury's control (Articles 203 (2), 207 (1) and 209).[21] This displeasure was most graphically illustrated in the stand-off over the draft Public Finance Management Bill, between devolution's then mother ministry, Local Government, and the Finance ministry. While Treasury insisted on retaining control of monies devolved by Parliament to county governments, the Local Government prevailed with its position aligned to the recommendations of the Task Force on Devolved Government[22] and the spirit of the Constitution, that Treasury must not touch such monies. Additionally, and critically for effective transition to devolution, the Kibaki government delayed the establishment and adequate resourcing of the Transition Authority, the statutory midwife of the process. This meant that devolution was launched in April 2013, before the Authority could complete many of the preparatory measures envisaged by the Task Force on devolution, and reflected in the Authority's founding statute.[23]
These goings-on confirm Kenyatta's place among his predecessors' 'constitutionalism for convenience': if it hampers, ditch it!
Kibaki's 2013 succession was a somewhat messy affair. His regime had a perception that a Kikuyu could not – or at least should not – succeed him; and so it searched for an 'acceptable' non-Kikuyu to oppose Raila Odinga and subsequently manage the ICC burden favourably, with Finance minister Kenyatta, arguably the strongest Kikuyu presidential candidate, indicted there for the 2007/08 post-election violence. Meanwhile, Kalonzo Musyoka's 2008 backing of Kibaki had enabled the latter to form a government despite a numerically stronger opposition; and Musyoka had reason to expect the favour to be returned. Elsewhere, Kenyatta considered a candidacy for fellow Deputy Prime Minister and former Vice President, Musalia Mudavadi, who had the additional advantage of family ties to former president Moi. In the event, Kenyatta abandoned Mudavadi, declaring "the devil" to have caused him to even think of that option, broke loose of Kibaki handlers, and joined forces with fellow ICC suspect, William Ruto, to milk their tribulations for political gain. These developments pushed Musyoka into an alliance with Odinga.
However, a summary of Kenyatta's attitude to constitutionalism is best illustrated by his conduct during the 2017 presidential elections. Even as he laments constitutional obstacles to fighting corruption, Kenyatta consistently used state resources to curry favour among individual politicians and voters.
These goings-on confirm Kenyatta's place among his predecessors' 'constitutionalism for convenience': if it hampers, ditch it! For example, while the full implementation of the Constitution (2010) is viewed as a plausible instrument against corruption, Kenyatta has wished for the independence constitution's imperial presidency.[24] Secondly, Kenyatta is among the Kiambu-ians who came to terms with 'the snake crossing the River Chania' into Nyeri,[25] but cannot countenance the snake leaving the 'House of Mumbi', an underlying issue in the post-2007 election agenda.[26] Additionally, after losing the 2002 presidential election, Kenyatta had become the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, and eventual chair of the KANU party; but he would lead the party into Kibaki's Party of National Unity coalition in the run up to the 2007 election, and eventually abandon it for his own presidential run with an eye on ensuring a House of Mumbi victory in the 2013 elections. The Supreme Court upheld Kenyatta's victory in that election; but the court's decision was derided by numerous legal scholars.[27]
While Kibaki seemed ambivalent during the 2010 debates on the Proposed Constitution, Kenyatta publicly supported it. However, as Finance Minister, his attitude towards the document was evident in his disregard of it over the management of devolved funds. Additional events further illustrate Kenyatta's less than complete support for the constitution he swore to defend, such as his predilection is well known for grandiose, resource-consuming projects that have pushed the national debt burden beyond the East African Community sustainability levels. Such infrastructure priorities have paid scant attention to Chapter 4 of the Constitution's guarantee of the right to food, clothing and shelter.
Yet, it is Kenyatta II's failure to fully implement the transformative Constitution (2010) that stands him out as a great enemy of constitutionalism.
However, a summary of Kenyatta's attitude to constitutionalism is best illustrated by his conduct during the 2017 presidential elections. Even as he laments constitutional obstacles to fighting corruption, Kenyatta consistently used state resources to curry favour among individual politicians and voters. Public servants and other resources were deployed to the regions to curry favour for his Jubilee party. The regime has also been notorious for its persistent arm-twisting of constitutional commissions and independent offices, most notably the Auditor General and the Controller of Budget. Disdain for the independence of such institutions was most vividly illustrated in Kenyatta's recurrent outbursts against the Supreme Court which had nullified the August 8 elections for being fraught with "illegalities and irregularities". Yet two of the judges Kenyatta dismissed as wakora – crooks – had upheld his 2013 election despite big questions and all would uphold his victory in the October 26 repeat election. In spite of their recruitment on constitutionally determined merit, Kenyatta would ask the same judges rhetorically: "Who even elected you?", and would promise to 'revisit' and 'fix the court 'problem'.[28] Since then, the law has been changed to complicate the nullification of a presidential election.
This note has presented a broad-brush review of the relationships between Kenya's four presidents to date and their regimes, and the constitution. The broad finding is that all the presidents have not been sticklers for the either the letter or spirit of the constitution, applying it when convenient, and amending it or even violating it when the need has arisen. Kenyatta I's apologists might point to the context of his tenure – an autocrat in euphoria over the new independence status; and Moi's apologists will emphasize his restricted world view. It is however, difficult to go beyond ethnic insularity find explanations for Kibaki's failure to embed constitutionalism more deeply in governance and his misadventure which led to many lost and wasted lives and livelihoods, is an indictment he will never escape. Kenyatta II is an extension of the Kibaki heritage in many respects, having been an alleged hatchet man in the horrors of 2007/08. Yet, it is Kenyatta II's failure to fully implement the transformative Constitution (2010) that stands him out as a great enemy of constitutionalism. Based on these experiences, the outlook for Kenyan constitutionalism looks bleak.
Bigsten, Arne (1977), Regional Inequality in Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya: Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi
Kanyinga K, Okello D. Tension and Reversals in Democratic Transitions: The Kenya 2007 General Elections. Nairobi: Society for International Development and Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi; 2010.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics et al. (2014), The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2014. Nairobi, KNBS. Available at https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/fr308/fr308.pdf
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (2008), On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya's Post‐2007 Election Violence. Nairobi: KNCHR. Available at https://kenyastockholm.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/pev-report-as-adopted-by-the-commission-for-release-on-7-august-20081.pdf
Kipkorir, Benjamin (2016), Descent from Cherang'any Hills: Memoirs of a Reluctant Academic. Moran (E.A.) Publishers Ltd.
Kivuva, Joshua M. (2011), Restructuring the Kenyan State. Constitution Working Paper Series No.1. Nairobi: Society for International Development.
Ministry of Local Government (2012), Interim Report of the Task Force on Devolved Government: A report on the implementation of Devolved Government in Kenya. Nairobi: Local Government.
Murunga, Godwin and Sharack Nasong'o (Eds.) (2013), Kenya: the struggle for democracy. London: Zed Books
Mutua, Makau (2008), Kenya's Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan (Challenge and Change in African Politics). Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
URAIA Trust and IRI (2012), The Citizen Handbook: Empowering citizens through civic education. Nairobi: URAIA/IRI. At http://www.juakatiba.com/public/publication/eccbc87e4b5ce2fe28308fd9f2a7baf3.pdf
[1] That impunity persists despite the structural opportunities to fight it is also a reflection of the hopelessness of a majority of the Kenyan people, as illustrated in the rest of this note.
[2] This was precisely what the European settlers in Rhodesia did in 1965, leading to minority rule opposed by guerilla warfare in that country until formal independence was negotiated in 1980.
[3] While the constitution had provided for a multi-party state in a bi-cameral parliamentary system, the opposition KADU party was 'encouraged' to dissolve itself by "crossing the floor", transforming Kenya into a de facto single party state, even if in law t remained a multi-party state
[4] After the 1969 banning of ex-Vice president Oginga Odinga's KPU party, and the detention without trial of all its leadership, the country became a de facto single party dictatorship.
[5] The 'higher absorption' parts of the country were the former White Highlands of central Kenya and the spine of the Rift Valley, settled by European settler farmers, in which the colonial government had used 'native' tax revenues, such as is reported by Kipkorir (2016), to build development-facilitating infrastructure, such as roads, electricity and telecommunications.
[6] For example, allowing African small scale farmers to grow cash crops at independence boosted national economic growth into the late 1960s, but the oil crises of 1974 and 1979 dampened performance.
[7] See Bigsten (1977).
[8] Kenya National Bureau of Statistics et al. (2014).
[9] A local government minister, for example, used Nairobi City Council equipment to grade a road to his Kajiado home in preparation for his son's wedding.
[10] Into the early 1990s, these annual reports were 7 years behind schedule, meaning the responsible officer had likely transferred, retired, or indeed, died.
[11] See Murunga and Nasongo (2013).
[12] Even Mwai Kibaki who a decade earlier had declared that removing Moi and KANU from was like trying to cut down a mugumo tree using a razor blade, ventured to contest the presidency.
[13] See URAIA/IRI (2012: 15-18).
[14] This choice overlooked Raila Odinga and former minister Katana Ngala, and former vice presidents George Saitoti, Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi.
[15] The Kibaki faction for instance rubbished a Memorandum of Understanding that provided for equal shares of the cabinet with the Odinga faction of the party.
[16] The 2007 presidential election circumstances are documented in the Kriegler Report, available at https://kenyastockholm.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/the_kriegler_report.pdf. The post-election violence is explored in the Waki Report, available at http://kenyalaw.org/Downloads/Reports/Commission_of_Inquiry_into_Post_Election_Violence.pdf. For an academic approach to the issues, see Kanyinga and Okello (2011).
[17] The Agendas were as follows: 1–Immediate action to stop the violence and restore fundamental rights and liberties; 2–Immediate measures to address the humanitarian crisis, and promote healing and reconciliation; 3–How to overcome the political crisis; and 4–Addressing long-term issues, including undertaking constitutional, legal and institutional reforms; land reform; tackling poverty and inequality as well as combating regional development imbalances; tackling unemployment, particularly among the youth; consolidating national cohesion and unity; and addressing transparency, accountability and impunity. For details, go to https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Background-Note.pdf
[18] An interesting analysis is available in Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights (2008).
[19] The manner of their creation was so ad hoc, leading to deeply contested boundaries and headquarters.
[20] Key individuals in his regime had campaigned against the Proposed Constitution, and only changed positions when it became evident the 'Yes' camp would carry the August 2010 national referendum.
[21] The Constitution ring-fences at least 15% of national revenue for county governments. In reality, however, the share has been nearly 40% of the revenue.
[22] See Ministry of Local Government (2012).
[23] Transition Authority (2016) is an elaborate end term report. Sun, August 20th 2017.At
[24] See Njeri Rugene and Patrick Langat, President Kenyatta defends tenure, seeks second term. Daily Nation, Tuesday March 21, 2017.
[25] Kenyatta I's Kiambu people provided the 'home guards' who fought against the Mau Mau largely from the Kikuyu lands across the River Chania. The Kiambu position was therefore that the presidency (and its motorcade [snake]) should never cross into the other lands.
[26] See for example, Paragraph 545 in Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (2008).
[27] For example, see Nzau Musau, Why Decision 2013 was ridiculed, torn apart by scholars. Standard Digital, Sun, 20th August 2017. At https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001251923/why-decision-2013-was-ridiculed-torn-apart-by-scholars
[28] Aljazeera, Uhuru Kenyatta to court: "We shall reisit this". 2nd September 2017. At http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/uhuru-kenyatta-court-revisit-170902130212736.html
THE TIES THAT MAY NEVER BIND: Chasing the mirage of SPLM reunification
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), a southern Sudan-based national liberation movement, sprouted in 1983 in the Sudanese and regional political theatre at the height of the Cold War that witnessed ideological and superpower rivalry in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. Many South Sudanese and people on the political left received its declared objective of constructing a united socialist "new Sudan" with a pinch of salt. A handful of highly educated individuals formed its officer corps but the bulk of the army, the SPLA, was drawn not from an industrial working class but from sedentary and agro-pastoral communities – unlikely material for building socialism.
However, the united socialist new Sudan disappeared imperceptibly from the SPLM/A written and oral literature with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the world socialist system before the turn of the century. This led to an ideological shift in the SPLM/A system. This shift coincided with the demand by the people of South Sudan to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.
The war of national liberation ended in a political compromise: the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), which the SPLM and National Congress Party (NCP), representing the government of Sudan, spent eleven years negotiating in Nairobi, Machakos and finally Naivasha under the auspices of two successive Kenyan presidents. Dr. John Garang de Mabior and Sudan's Vice President Ustaz Ali Osman Mohammed Tah signed the peace agreement in Nairobi on 9 January 2005 in a colourful ceremony presided over by President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and witnessed by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, President Omar al Bashir of Sudan and Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, among other African and world leaders.
In the second edition of "The politics of liberation in South Sudan: An insider's view", I posed the question: "What is the SPLM and where is it?" I was trying to provoke a debate in the SPLM/A that had since 1983 evolved like Siamese twins who are conjoined at the head and who cannot be separated surgically because it would lead to their death. There was no clear separation of functions with the SPLA being the military organ of the liberation movement and SPLM its political organ. The two subsumed and eclipsed each other's respective functions, blurring and indeed distorting internal political and democratic development to prevent the emergence of a genuine and authentic national liberation movement.
The lack of an ideology and the absence of organisation and institutions in a national liberation movement can negatively influence its development and the relationship between its members and the masses of the people, as well as the nature of the resultant state. The state in South Sudan, in its current disposition regardless of the international recognition it obtains, is a façade. The lack of political organisation and the absence of democratic institutions and instruments of public power resulted in the personalisation of the SPLM/A's power and public authority. These were the principal drivers of the internal contradictions, splits and factionalism within the SPLM/A.
The SPLM/A was such an informality that only Garang could manage it and keep it moving. His sudden demise in 2005 released the negative forces hitherto kept under tight lid by military authoritarianism. The power transfer to Commander Salva Kiir Mayardit went without a glitch. Nevertheless, Kiir's leadership style, unlike that of Garang, enabled the emergence of "power-centres" around his presidency of the Government of South Sudan. The interim period, before the carrying out of the referendum on self-determination, witnessed internal power struggles among the SPLM's first and second line leaders characterised by intrigues, short-changing and an upsurge in ethnic nationalism, as well as the emergence of ethnic associations and caucuses in the executive and legislative branches of government, widespread corruption in government and society, insecurity in the form of ubiquitous ethnic conflicts and localised civil wars.
The state in South Sudan, in its current disposition regardless of the international recognition it obtains, is a façade. The lack of political organisation and the absence of democratic institutions and instruments of public power resulted in the personalisation of the SPLM/A's power and public authority. These were the principal drivers of the internal contradictions, splits and factionalism within the SPLM/A.
The independence of South Sudan found the SPLM (South Sudan's governing party) in a state of acute dysfunctionality due to internal power wrangles. The leaders miserably failed to separate and transform the SPLM into a mass political party guided by democratic principles, a constitution and a political programme. Its internal situation was toxic and ready to implode. The pressure lid that tightly compressed its internal contradictions had suddenly ruptured with the death of Garang. It was only the general concern about secession from the Sudan among the majority of the Southern Sudanese that sustained the unstable calm, enabling the orderly conduct of the referendum on self-determination.
The structural drivers of SPLM/A internal splits
The internal and external socio-political conditions under which the SPLM/A formed in July 1983 laid the foundations of its perpetual internal instability. Without going into details, the failure to unify the remnants of the mutinies of elements of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in Bor (16 May) and Ayod (6 June) with the Anya-nya 2, which was formed by former officers and soldiers of Anya-nya, who had been absorbed into the SAF following the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement and who rebelled in Akobo in February 1976, through the agency of the Derg defined the militarist character of the nascent movement. When the Anya-nya 2 flipped back to the liberation movement in 1988, no structural changes had occurred within the SPLM/A, particularly at the leadership level. Like a dinosaur, the SPLM had a tiny head resting on a huge body that it carried with immense difficulty. The suffocating military environment resulted in the 1991 Nasir Declaration that split the movement, leading to internecine fighting along ethnic contours. By the end of 2003, when Dr. Riek Machar and Dr. Lam Akol, who had authored the declaration, returned to the fold, the SPLM/A remained structurally unchanged.
The institutions created by the SPLM First National Convention in 1994, like the National Liberation Council (NLC) that was established to perform legislative functions and the National Executive Committee (NEC) that was to exercise executive functions of the SPLM/A, had disappeared into oblivion. The SPLM/A power and public authority had begun to centralise, concentrate and personify in Garang, its Chairman and Commander-in-Chief. The return to the SPLM/A of Machar and Akol on the eve of the peace agreement with Khartoum, coupled with Machar's ambition to become Number One in the SPLM/A hierarchy, heightened rumour-mongering in the SPLM/A targeted at ousting of Salva Kiir as the deputy Chairman and SPLA's Chief of General Staff. Kiir, who had stayed loyal to Garang throughout the turbulent years, would not take the rumours lying down. This triggered what came to be known in the SPLM/A as the Yei Crisis, which in November 2004 pitted Kiir against his boss.
Although the Yei crisis was an internal, structurally-driven SPLM/A matter, its ethnic overtones and provincial contours were prominent, feeding into a general dissatisfaction with Garang in Bahr el Ghazal (where he had in the course of time differed, split with and executed several leaders) spearheaded by prominent individuals linked to the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum. A conference called in Rumbek to resolve this crisis, which addressed only its symptoms but not its structural underpinnings. This conference was typical of the SPLM/A meetings that always ended up fudging the substantive issues under the canopy of "opening a new page". As a result, the attempts to resolve the crisis were frustrated, creating conditions for the resurgence or eruption of another crisis along the same lines.
Kiir, who had stayed loyal to Garang throughout the turbulent years, would not take the rumours lying down. This triggered what came to be known in the SPLM/A as the Yei Crisis, which in November 2004 pitted Kiir against his boss.
The splits in the SPLM/A have always been more political and personal than ideological, hence they transcended and permeated into the ethnic and provincial domains, acquiring different dimensions and dynamics. The splits in 1983/4 and 1991 quickly acquired ethnic dimensions because of the lack of an ideologically-driven agenda, although the commanders in Nasir had raised the right of the people of southern Sudan to exercise self-determination. However, the question of power and who wielded it was the common denominator in all these splits. It was the perception of power as a personal birthright rather than an institutional assignment that set the patterns for achieving it. In a militarist environment like the SPLM/A, the pattern for capturing and holding onto power was inevitably violent.
The SPLM split and the civil war
In the absence of democratic institutions and instruments of power and public authority, the SPLM/A became a huge informal patrimonial network of political patronage. This system became more pronounced after Garang's death, the rise of Kiir within the SPLM/A and the independence of South Sudan. The lack of a political programme to manage the social and economic development of the new state of South Sudan rendered the interim period (2005-2011) what the SPLM leaders cynically called "payback time": they dolled themselves up in self-aggrandisement, thanks to the easy availability of oil revenues. The nexus between personal power and wealth accumulated in a primitive fashion without consideration for law and order resulted in a life and death situation.
The patrimonial political patronage system that the SPLM leaders controlled accentuated and amplified the SPLM's internal contradictions. The personalised power struggle became a fireball in December 2013, barely three years into the independence and birth of the Republic of South Sudan. The resultant civil war was initially viewed by many people as a war between Kiir and Machar (and by extension a war between the Dinka and the Nuer) but it was in fact a reflection of the SPLM's failure to address its structurally-driven internal political contradictions.
The SPLM reunification
In all these SPLM/A disruptions, eruptions or implosions, these contradictions have always been buried under the talk about "return to the fold" or "reconciliation and peace", which have left these contradictions intact and ready to rekindle. In December 2013, the eruption of violence, and its scale and ferocity, caught the IGAD region and the whole world unawares. South Sudan had not completely emerged from the effects of the 21-year war of liberation and from the border war with the Sudan (2012) and so nobody could understand why a people who had endured suffering for that long would go to war again. Thus, the interventions to help resolve the conflict were frenetic but superficial. Nobody cared to solicit a scientific understanding of the conflict's causes.
The extraordinary summit of IGAD Heads of State and Government, held in Nairobi on 27 December 2013, resolved to bring the warring parties, namely the Government of the Republic of South Sudan and the rebel movement christened the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition [SPLM/A (IO)], to the negotiating table to thrash out their difference and reach a peace agreement. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) became the contact between Machar and the IGAD Special Envoys to South Sudan. The negotiations began in Addis Ababa.
In December 2013, the eruption of violence, and its scale and ferocity, caught the IGAD region and the whole world unawares. South Sudan had not completely emerged from the effects of the 21-year war of liberation and from the border war with the Sudan (2012) and so nobody could understand why a people who had endured suffering for that long would go to war again. Thus, the interventions to help resolve the conflict were frenetic but superficial. Nobody cared to solicit a scientific understanding of the conflict's causes.
The ruling parties in Ethiopia (EPRDF) and South Africa (ANC) came up with a joint initiative, which aimed at resolving the SPLM's internal contradictions that triggered and drove the civil war. It is worth mentioning that the ANC and the Norwegian Labour Party had earlier, before the eruption of the violence, tried to help the SPLM leadership to overcome its differences, which had been triggered by rumours that Salva Kiir had decided not to contest for the presidency come 2015. President Kiir reacted to the rumours in a manner similar to somebody who sets his house on fire to treat bug-infested pieces of furniture.
As if not sure that the SPLM's 3rd National Convention, scheduled for May 2013, would return him as the Party Chairman and hence the SPLM's flag bearer for the presidential elections in April 2015, Kiir blocked the democratic process of SPLM state congresses and the National Convention, suspended the SPLM Secretary General and paralysed all SPLM political functions. These actions halted the political process towards the presidential and general elections for national, state and county governments. He also brushed away any reconciliatory talks with Machar, Pagan Amun Okiech or Mama Rebecca Nyandeng Garang, who had shown interest in contesting the position of the SPLM Chairman.
The ANC-EPRDF initiative was the right approach. These were the SPLM first row leaders and it was absolutely imperative to reconcile and unify their ranks to alleviate the suffering of the people. Except the eruption of violence and the ethnicisation of conflict had rendered impossible the task of reconciliation. The grassroots opinion solicited in 2012, before the war, indicated widespread disenchantment of the masses with the SPLM as a ruling party. (Later, the people would quip that when the SPLM leaders split they killed the people and when they united they stole the people's money.)
However, Machar turned down the initiative in favour of a full-blown peace negotiation under IGAD mediation, suggesting that the conflict and war was no longer an affair of the SPLM. In September 2014, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, President Kiir met the Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, and requested his indulgence and assistance to reunite the feuding SPLM factions, namely, the SPLM in government (SPLM-IG), the SPLM in opposition (SPLM-IO) and the SPLM former political detainees (FPDs). President Kikwete obliged and the process kicked off in November 2014 under the auspices of Chama Cha Mapenduzi (CCM). On 21 January 2015, the three factional heads – Kiir [SPLM (IG)], Machar (SPLM/A (IO)] and Okiech [SPLM (FPDs] – signed the SPLM Reunification Agreement in a ceremony in Arusha witnessed by President Kikwete, President Yoweri Museveni and President Uhuru Kenyatta, as well as then Deputy President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The impact of the SPLM reunification agreement on the IGAD peace process in South Sudan was not immediately obvious given that the civil war not only raged throughout South Sudan, but also considering that the people had become weary of the SPLM as a ruling party. The SPLM reunification agreement was supposed to moderate and ease the tension between the SPLM leaders in order to accelerate and facilitate the sealing of a peace agreement and return the country to normalcy. The motivations of the SPLM leaders crossed rather than aligned with each other. The SPLM/A (IO) fell off the reunification process. The guarantors of the reunification agreement, CCM and ANC, proceeded with the two remaining factions to implement the Arusha agreement on SPLM reunification. They eventually consummated the process with the reinstatement of the comrades to their respective positions: Okiech as the SPLM Secretary General, and Deng Alor, John Luk and Kosti Manibe to the SPLM Political Bureau.
However, once disrupted, relations based on social considerations rather than principles of politics and ideology rarely mend. It did not take long before the four former political detainees stormed out of Juba and did not return till after the signing of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS) in August 2015. The SPLM reunification process had flopped.
The Entebbe and Cairo meetings
I headed the SPLM/A-IO delegation to the reunification talks in Arusha. In a report to the SPLM/A (IO) NLC meeting in Pagak, December 2014, I said that the SPLM reunification was like chasing a mirage. I still believe it will never take place, given the political dynamics since the fighting in J1, which rekindled the war in 2016.
The IGAD-sponsored High-level Revitalisation Forum (HLRF) process has outpaced the SPLM reunification in a manner that confirms the statement I made above that the SPLM faction will never unite; the ties will never bind. The former political detainees who were enthusiastic about reunification seem to have had second thoughts when they pursued the project of a UN Trusteeship of South Sudan, which they later changed to exclude Kiir and Machar from participating in a Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU) made up of technocrats. The failure of the HLRF to achieve the desired peace agreement prompted the IGAD Council of Ministers to propose a face-to-face meeting between Kiir and his principal nemesis, Machar, under the auspices of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiye Ahmed, This face-to-face meeting was modelled on the "handshake" between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga that had eased the political standoff in Kenya following the disputed 2017 elections.
The Kiir-Machar face-to-face meeting took place on the sidelines of the 32nd Extra-Ordinary Assembly of the IGAD Heads of State and Government. President Kiir categorically rejected the idea of working with Machar, who was flown in from Pretoria in South Africa where he had been kept under house arrest since November 2016. Reflecting the level of distrust between the two leaders, the failure of the meeting prompted IGAD to mandate the Sudanese Head of State, President Omer Hassan Ahmed al Bashir, to facilitate a second round.
The failure of the HLRF to achieve the desired peace agreement prompted the IGAD Council of Ministers to propose a face-to-face meeting between Kiir and his principal nemesis, Machar, under the auspices of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiye Ahmed. This face-to-face meeting was modelled on the "handshake" between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga that had eased the political standoff in Kenya following the disputed 2017 elections.
This mandate was ostensibly in the belief that Bashir might prevail on the two antagonists given their relations in the not too distant past. The aim of this round was to herald a discussion between the South Sudanese leaders to resolve outstanding issues on governance and security arrangements, taking into consideration the measures proposed in the revised IGAD Council of Ministers' Bridging Proposal on the Revitalisation of ARCISS, and to rehabilitate South Sudan's economy through bilateral cooperation between the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of the Sudan. President Museveni was conspicuously absent in the Addis Ababa summit. Many people believed it was a loud register of his disapproval of the Kiir-Machar face-to-face meeting. Museveni has never disguised his contempt for Machar and his support for Kiir. On the eve of Kiir's travel to Addis Ababa, Museveni sent to Juba his Deputy Prime Minister, Moses Ali with a letter to him; perhaps that was his desperate last attempt to torpedo the talks.
In a surprising twist in this intricate diplomatic and political maze, the transfer of the process to Khartoum triggered regional kinetic energy. Museveni flew to Khartoum on 25 June to witness the Kiir-Machar face-to-face meeting now under the auspices of President Bashir. This unexpected convergence in Khartoum of Museveni and Kiir was not so much about the face-to-face meeting but about the rehabilitation of South Sudan's oil fields and the Sudanese involvement in their protection as echoed in the Khartoum Declaration of Agreement (KDA) between Kiir, Machar and Gabriel Changson (SSOA), Deng Alor (FPDs) and Peter Manyen (Other Political Parties) signed in Khartoum on 26 June. Only one thing – the prospect for renewed flow of South Sudan's oil to international markets – motivated both Bashir and Museveni into the scheme to rehabilitate South Sudan's economy. This reads into the Bashir-Museveni's rapprochement and the new-found friendship between the two erstwhile hostile leaders.
Thereafter, the South Sudan government and the opposition groups signed in Khartoum on Friday 6 July, 2018, the Agreement on Outstanding Issues of Security Arrangements. The process moved to Kampala on Saturday, 7 July this year, where Salva Kiir, Riek Machar and the other political opposition signed the agreement on governance. On 10 July, the two agreements were presented to President Kenyatta, marking the consummation of the peace agreement and the end of the South Sudan conflict. Indeed the HLRF had outpaced and overtaken the SPLM reunification.
The intervention of President Omer al Bashir, on account of Sudan's national security and economic interests, rescued from collapse and embarrassment the IGAD peace process. The clever involvement of President Museveni was necessary to allay Kiir's fears and build confidence in Sudan's mediation, although he still has an axe to grind with South Sudan over the Abyei border demarcation and many other issues that have not been resolved in the post-referendum process. The success of the IGAD process and the failure of the SPLM reunification is a diplomatic slap in the face of CCM and ANC, the two parties that had laboured to bring together the SPLM factions.
However, the agenda for the people of South Sudan is not SPLM reunification but the political process of socio-economic rehabilitation to translate the signed agreements, which are essentially political compromises, into practical plans and programmes. South Sudan's leaders have to act strategically looking into the future rather than tactically to win elections at the end of the transitional period.
NAMIBIA'S BIG CAMPAIGN: Why direct cash transfers can still change the world
In 2008, the Namibian government launched a pilot universal basic income project known as the Basic Income Grant (BIG). The results were amazing, with crime rates dropping by more than one-third and the number of malnourished children almost halved. In just 12 months after its launch, the BIG project showed to be more than able to actively contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations (now known as the Sustainable Development Goals). It was a tremendous opportunity to set the foundation for a new age of prosperity for the entire African continent, and it served as a paradigm around which other similarly successful programmes have been modeled.
Sadly, despite its initial success, the BIG campaign was never implemented on a national scale, and the project was eventually discontinued, never to be heard of again. Since then, however, many things have changed, not just in Namibia and in Africa, but in the entire world. The latest advancements in technology (namely, the amazing leaps forward in automation and artificial intelligence) are forcing many governments to face a new issue – that machines are quickly becoming better than humans at performing many jobs. Artificial intelligence (AI) is soon going to substitute many human workers, leading to a widespread fear that massive unemployment rates could bring many highly industrialised countries to their knees.
Universal basic income (UBI) is regarded by many as a potential solution, and the leaders of the most developed nations are looking at past practical examples of such policies. In this regard, the Namibian BIG project might represent an archetype which might spearhead humanity towards the next step of its evolution. Although the chances of seeing it implemented again in Namibia on a larger scale are very slim, it can still be a fundamental lesson for other countries who look at UBI as a fundamental weapon in the war against poverty.
BIG: A brief history
According to the World Bank, in 1991, whites, who comprised about 5% of the total population in Namibia, controlled over 70% of the country's wealth. Today, more than 25 years after independence, Namibia is still a country plagued with deep social, ethnic and economic inequalities and extreme poverty. Much of the country's political agenda focused on reducing income inequalities and poverty levels, and, in truth, much has been done in the last two decades. In 2016, Namibia's GINI coefficient (a globally accepted standard for measuring inequality in wealth distribution) stood at 0.572, a relatively bad figure as a coefficient of 0 is used to represent a perfectly equitable society, while a coefficient of 1 represents a completely unequal one.
According to the World Bank, in 1991, whites, who comprised about 5% of the total population in Namibia, controlled over 70% of the country's wealth. Today, more than 25 years after independence, Namibia is still a country plagued with deep social, ethnic and economic inequalities and extreme poverty.
However, back in 2002, Namibia's GINI coefficient was even higher, reaching up to 0.633. The Namibia Tax Consortium (NAMTAX) was appointed by the government to find a sustainable solution to fuel the nation's economic growth. Too many African countries, in fact, lean far too much on the help of more developed countries or on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but it is common knowledge that their policies do not always help to achieve development goals in the long term. Even worse, many bona fide offers of aid often contribute to widening the already unbridgeable gap between Western societies and the poorest countries.
Eventually, the Consortium published a report stating that "by far the best method of addressing poverty and inequality would be a universal income grant." The idea was eventually put into practice by implementing the Basic Income Grant (BIG), the first universal cash-transfer pilot project in the world. In 2005, a coalition of churches, trade unions, and NGOs joined forces to provide each Namibian with a cash grant of N$100 (approx. US$7) to be paid monthly as a right. The fund would cover all Namibians, regardless of their socio-economic status, from their day of birth until they were eligible to the existing universal State Old Age Pension of N$450. According to the Consortium, the new tax system would make the BIG affordable, amounting to just 3% of the country's GDP. Debating and lobbying kept going on for another two years until a pilot project was finally approved to test the programme in practice. In January 2008, the BIG pilot programme was finally launched in the small village of Otjivero.
The amazing positive effects of the Otjivero experiment
About 1,200 people resided in Otjivero, a small town of retrenched former farm workers who lived in abject poverty conditions. The Namibian government chose this rural settlement to monitor the impact of the BIG project over a two-year period until December 2009, and appointed a team of local and international researchers to document the situation prior to and after the implementation of the programme.
After less than one year, the population of Otjivero reaped the benefits of this project with amazing results. Both children and adults enjoyed a substantial improvement in their quality of life. Child malnutrition levels in the village dropped in just six months from 42% to 17%. Parents finally had enough money to pay school fees as well as the equipment needed by their kids, such as stationery and school uniforms. Schools had more money to purchase teaching material for the students, and dropout rates fell from between 30% and 40% to a mere 5%.
The introduction of the BIG grants helped the community grow and thrive, and allowed people to focus on more productive jobs. Many young women become financially independent without having to engage in transactional sex. A substantial amount of money was spent on starting new small enterprises and engaging in more productive activities that fostered local economic development. As a direct consequence, economic and poverty-related crimes fell by over 60%.
After less than one year, the population of Otjivero reaped the benefits of this project with amazing results. Both children and adults enjoyed a substantial improvement in their quality of life. Child malnutrition levels in the village dropped in just six months from 42% to 17%.
The sanitary conditions of the local population improved significantly, with five times more people being able to afford treatment in the settlement's health clinic and, even more importantly, to buy food. Before the introduction of the BIG, most HIV-positive residents faced numerous difficulties in accessing antiretroviral (ARV) therapy due to poverty and lack of proper means of transportation. The project helped them to afford better nutrition and more reliable transport to get their medications. Even critics who argued that free money would lead to more alcoholism were proved wrong, even when a committee that was trying to curb alcoholism was established.
Some years later, during the 2012-2013 summer months, Namibia was struck by one of the worst recorded droughts, leaving over 755,000 people (36% of the population) exposed to starvation in the subsequent years. After the President declared a state of emergency, the three Lutheran Churches in Namibia implemented a cash grant programme modeled on the BIG pilot in Otjivero. The grant helped approximately 6,000 people with enough money to buy the food they needed to survive. The Namibians reached by the grant spent about 60% of the money received to ensure food security for their families. However, it is interesting to note that people used the remaining 40% of the money to meet their other fundamental needs, such as to covering health care expenses, paying for their children's schooling and even investing in their farming equipment. Once again, the basic income project brought direct positive changes to the quality of life of those who received it and to the local economies as well.
The initial findings vastly exceed the expectations of the BIG coalition, and were encouraging enough to suggest that the introduction of the project on a national scale was possible. Some critics tried to depict these results as unscientific and unreliable, casting a shadow of doubt on the whole project. However, the analysis, published by the now defunct Namibia Economic Policy Research Unit, was itself later found to be methodologically flawed. Wrong and grossly inflated figures about the projected costs of the implementation of the programme at the national level started circulating and, even after NEPRU retracted its statements, they still kept circulating in the media. Some local politicians joined this (rather questionable) wave of criticism and argued that the BIG was a less effective strategy than other extremely generic attempts at "creating more jobs", ignoring the fundamental strength of the project – its ability to emancipate the poor financially.
Eventually, after the Namibian president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, officially took a position against the grant in 2010, the programme was discontinued, if not forgotten. In 2015, the Minister of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, Zephania Kameeta, stated that the government was once again evaluating the implementation of the BIG as one of the key elements of its strategy in the war against poverty. Sadly, the efforts of the former bishop and relentless advocate of UBI were swept away just one year later when the BIG project was set aside and replaced by a much more traditional, growth-based economy programme known as the "Harambee Prosperity Plan".
Some local politicians joined this (rather questionable) wave of criticism and argued that the BIG was a less effective strategy than other extremely generic attempts at "creating more jobs", ignoring the fundamental strength of the project – its ability to emancipate the poor financially.
Despite some recent talks about the potential positive effects of the BIG, universal income doesn't seem to be part of Namibia's foreseeable future. However, it has already been proved to be an unexpectedly efficient tool for bringing prosperity to the Namibian population. Many other countries around the world can still learn from the amazing results it brought about.
Lessons for other countries
The industrialised world is facing its own shares of different problems, and poverty has recently resurfaced even in the richest countries where its existence had been long forgotten. A "fourth world" made up of vast numbers of immigrants, refugee, and homeless people is swelling the ranks of these invisible new poor that are systematically exploited even in the most highly industrialised Western democracies. Today, one-third of American families struggle to buy food, shelter or medical care, and in some European countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece, more than one-third of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
And things are about to get even nastier. Automation, robotics and the never-ending technological race are raising serious issues, such as the ethical consequences of substituting some human professions with AI. A recent research study estimated that the upcoming technological advancements are putting a huge proportion of jobs at risk. The numbers are absurdly high – up to 50% in the United States, 69% in India, 77% in China, 80% in Nepal, and 88% in Ethiopia. Installing a robot in place of a human worker is becoming increasingly cheaper, and the current AI revolution is making machines better than humans in almost everything (including thinking). If even the strongest economies are on the verge of social failure already, how can we brace ourselves to face a future where machines are going to strip a huge proportion of the population of their jobs?
A recent research study estimated that the upcoming technological advancements are putting a huge proportion of jobs at risk. The numbers are absurdly high – up to 50% in the United States, 69% in India, 77% in China, 80% in Nepal, and 88% in Ethiopia.
Some, such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and Bill Gates, have become advocates of the UBI as a solution to guarantee social stability. If fewer humans are needed to do the same jobs, it doesn't mean that fewer humans have the right to live a quality life they can truly enjoy. The Namibian BIG project eventually failed, but not because of its lack of merit. It was ended by those who were too short-sighted to understand its full potential. It was a great idea, but maybe just ahead of its time. However, this apparently small experiment started ten years ago in this small African village could be the first step towards a better world.
Namibia taught us one simple yet extremely important lesson – that UBI is not just viable and absolutely doable, it is one of the most cost-effective ways to stave off poverty at all levels.
Namibia taught us one simple yet extremely important lesson – that UBI is not just viable and absolutely doable, it is one of the most cost-effective ways to stave off poverty at all levels. It can help people become more productive, more creative, more able to focus on the things that matter, exactly as in the case of Otjivero's residents. It is an extraordinary force that could drive humanity forward into a new era of equality and social sustainability.
JOBS, SKILLS AND INDUSTRY 4.0: Rethinking the Value Proposition of University Education
In my last feature, I wrote on the six capacity challenges facing African universities: institutional supply, resources, faculty, research, outputs, and leadership. In this essay, I focus on one critical aspect of the outputs of our universities, namely, the employability of our graduates. To be sure, universities do not exist simply for economic reasons, for return on investment, or as vocational enterprises. They also serve as powerful centers for contemplation and the generation of new knowledges, for the cultivation of enlightened citizenship, as crucibles for forging inclusive, integrated, and innovative societies, and as purveyors, at their best, of cultures of civility, ethical values, and shared well-being.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that higher education is prized for its capacity to provide its beneficiaries jobs and professional careers. Thus, employability is at the heart of the value proposition of university education; it is its most compelling promise and unforgiving performance indicator. The evidence across Africa, indeed in many parts of the world, is quite troubling as mismatches persist, and in some cases appear to be growing, between the quality of graduates and the needs of the economy. This often results in graduate underemployment and unemployment.
The Employability Challenge
There are two powerful mega trends that will determine Africa's development trajectory in the 21st century. The first is the continent's youth bulge, and the second the changing nature of work. Employability is the nexus between the two, the thread that will weave or unravel the fabric of the continent's future, enabling it to achieve or abort the enduring historic and humanistic project for development, democracy, and self-determination.
As we all know, Africa's youth population is exploding. This promises to propel the continent either towards a demographic dividend of hosting the world's largest and most dynamic labor force or the demographic disaster of rampant insecurity and instability fueled by hordes of ill-educated and unemployable youths. According to United Nations data, in 2017 the continent had 16.64% (1.26 billion) of the world's population, which is slated to rise, on current trends, to 19.93% (1.70 billion) in 2030, and 25.87% (2.53 billion) in 2050, and 39.95% (4.47 billion) in 2100.
The African Development Bank succinctly captures the challenge and opportunity facing the continent: "Youth are Africa's greatest asset, but this asset remains untapped due to high unemployment. Africa's youth population is rapidly growing and expected to double to over 850 million by 2050. The potential benefits of Africa's youth population are unrealized as two-thirds of non-student youth are unemployed, discouraged, or only vulnerably employed despite gains in education access over the past several decades."
Thus, the youth bulge will turn out to be a blessing or curse depending on the employability skills imparted to them by our educational institutions including universities. Across Africa in 2017 children under the age of 15 accounted for 41% of the population and those 15 to 24 for another 19%. While African economies have been growing, the rate of growth is not fast enough to absorb the masses of young people seeking gainful employment. Since 2000 the rate of employment has been growing at an average rate of 3%. Africa needs to double this rate or more to significantly reduce poverty and raise general standards of living for its working people.
Not surprisingly, despite some improvements over the past two decades, the employment indicators for Africa continue to be comparatively unsatisfactory. For example, International Labor Organization data shows that in 2017 the unemployment rate in Africa was 7.9% compared to a world average of 5.6%; the vulnerable employment rate was 66.0% to 42.5%; the extreme working poverty rate was 31.9% to 11.2%; and the moderate working poverty rate was 23.6% to 16.0%, respectively.
This data underscores the fact that much of the growth in employment in many African countries is in the informal sector where incomes tend to be low and working conditions poor. In sectoral terms, there appears to be a structural decline in agricultural and manufacturing employment, and rise in service sector jobs. Yet, in many African countries both the declining and rising sectors are characterised by high incidence of vulnerable, informal, and part-time jobs.
The structural shifts in employment dynamics across much of Africa differ considerably from the historical path traversed by the developed countries. But the latter, too, are experiencing challenges of their own as the so-called fourth industrial revolution unleashes its massive and unpredictable transformations. In fact, the issue of graduate employability, as discussed in the next section is not a monopoly of universities in Africa and other parts of the Global South. It is also exercising the minds of educators, governments, and employers in the Global North.
The reason is simple: the world economy is undergoing major structural changes, which are evident everywhere even if their manifestations and intensity vary across regions and countries. As deeply integrated as Africa is in the globalized world economy, it means the continent's economies are facing double jeopardy. They are simultaneously confronting and navigating both the asymmetrical legacies of the previous revolutions and the unfolding revolution of digital automation, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, and so on in which the old boundaries of work, production, social life, and even the meaning of being human are rapidly eroding.
The analysis above should make it clear that employability cannot be reduced to employment. Employability entails the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attributes, in short, capabilities to pursue a productive and meaningful life. To quote an influential report by the British Council, "Employability requires technical skills, job-specific and generic cognitive attributes, but also a range of other qualities including communication, empathy, intercultural awareness and so forth…. Such a perspective guards against a reductive 'skills gap' diagnosis of the problems of graduate unemployment." The challenge for universities, then, is the extent to which they are providing an education that is holistic, one that provides subject and technical knowledges, experiential learning opportunities, liberal arts competencies, and soft and lifelong learning skills.
As deeply integrated as Africa is in the globalized world economy, it means the continent's economies are facing double jeopardy. They are simultaneously confronting and navigating both the asymmetrical legacies of the previous revolutions and the unfolding revolution of digital automation, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, and so on in which the old boundaries of work, production, social life, and even the meaning of being human are rapidly eroding.
But in addition to the attributes, values, and social networks acquired and developed by an individual in a university, employability depends on the wider socio-economic and political context. Employability thrives in societies committed to the pursuit of inclusive development. This entails, to quote the report again, "a fair distribution of the benefits of development (economic and otherwise) across the population, and allows equitable access to valued opportunities. Second, while upholding equality of all before the law and in terms of social welfare, it also recognizes and values social diversity. Third, it engages individuals and communities in the task of deciding the shape that society will take, through the democratic participation of all segments of society."
In short, employability refers to the provision and acquisition, in the words of an employability study undertaken at my university, USIU-Africa in 2017, "of skills necessary to undertake self-employment opportunities, creation of innovative opportunities as well as acquiring and maintaining salaried employment. It is the capacity to function successfully in a role and be able to move between occupations…. employability skills can be gained in and out of the classroom and depend also on the quality of education gained by the individuals before entry into the university. As such the role of the university is to provide a conducive environment and undertake deliberate measures to ensure that students acquire these skills within their period of study."
Universities and Employability
The African media is full of stories about the skills mismatch between the quality of graduates and the needs of employers and the economy. Many graduates end up "tarmacking" for years unemployed or underemployed. In the meantime, employers complain bitterly, to quote a story in University World News "unprepared graduates are raising our costs." The story paints a gloomy picture: "The Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) – a lobby group for all major corporate organizations – says in its latest survey that at least 70% of entry-level recruits require a refresher course in order to start to deliver in their new jobs. As a result, they take longer than expected to become productive, nearly doubling staff costs in a majority of organizations."
[E]mployability cannot be reduced to employment. Employability entails the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attributes, in short, capabilities to pursue a productive and meaningful life
The situation is no better in the rest of the region. The story continues, noting that a study of the Inter-University Council for East Africa, "shows that Uganda has the worst record, with at least 63% of graduates found to lack job market skills. It is followed closely by Tanzania, where 61% of graduates were ill prepared. In Burundi and Rwanda, 55% and 52% of graduates respectively were perceived to not be competent. In Kenya, 51% of graduates were believed to be unfit for jobs." The situation in Kenya and East Africa clearly applies elsewhere across Africa.
But the problem of employability afflicts universities and economies in the developed countries as well. Studies from the USA and UK are quite instructive. One is a 2014 Gallup survey of business leaders in the United States. To the statement "higher education institutions in this country are graduating students with the skills and competencies that my business needs," only 11% strongly agreed and another 22% agreed, while 17% strongly disagreed and another 17% disagreed, and the rest were in the middle. In contrast, in another Gallup survey, also conducted in 2014, 96% of the provosts interviewed believed they were preparing their students for success in the workforce. Another survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities highlighted the discrepancy between students' and employers' views on graduates preparedness. "For example, while 59 percent of students said they were well prepared to analyze and solve complex problems, just 24 percent of employers said they had found that to be true of recent college graduates."
In Britain, research commissioned by the Edge Foundation in 2011 underscored the same discrepancies. The project encompassed 26 higher education institutions and 9 employers. The report concluded, "While there are numerous examples of employers and HEIs working to promote graduate employability in the literature and in our research, there are still issues and barriers between employers and many of those responsible for HEI policy, particularly in terms of differences in mindset, expectations and priorities. There are concerns from some academics about employability measures in their universities diminishing the academic integrity of higher education provision. There is also frustration from employers about courses not meeting their needs."
Specifically, the reported noted, "Employers expect graduates to have the technical and discipline competences from their degrees but require graduates to demonstrate a range of broader skills and attributes that include team-working, communication, leadership, critical thinking, problem solving and often managerial abilities or potential." One could argue, this is indeed a widespread expectation among employers whether in the developed or developing countries.
Predictably, in a world that is increasingly addicted to rankings as a tool of market differentiation and competition, national and international employability rankings have emerged. One of the best known is the one by Times Higher Education, whose 2017 edition lists 150 universities from 33 countries. As with the general global rankings of universities, the rankings are dominated by American institutions, with 7 in the top 10 and 35 overall, followed by British universities with 3 in the top 20 and 9 overall. Africa has only one university in the league, the University of the Witwatersrand listed in last place at 150.
What, then, are some of the most effective interventions to enhance the employability of university graduates? There is no shortage of studies and suggestions. Clearly, it is critical to embed employability across the institution from the strategic plan, to curriculum design, to the provision of support services such as internships and career counseling. The importance of carefully crafted student placements and experiential and work-related learning cannot be overemphasized. We can all borrow from each other's best practices duly adapted to fit our specific institutional and local contexts.
Cooperative education that combines classroom study and practical work has long been touted for its capacity to impart employability skills and prepare young people transition from higher education to employment. Work-integrated learning and experiential learning encompass various features and practices including internships, placements, and service learning. In the United States and Canada several universities adopted cooperative education and work-integrated learning in the first decades of the 20th century. The movement has since spread to many parts of the world. The World Council of Cooperative Education, which was founded in 1983, currently has 913 institutions in 52 countries.
What, then, are some of the most effective interventions to enhance the employability of university graduates?… Clearly, it is critical to embed employability across the institution from the strategic plan, to curriculum design, to the provision of support services such as internships and career counseling. The importance of carefully crafted student placements and experiential and work-related learning cannot be overemphasized. We can all borrow from each other's best practices duly adapted to fit our specific institutional and local contexts.
The Developing Employability Initiative (DEI), a collaboration comprising 30 higher education institutions and over 700 scholars internationally, defines employability as "the ability to create and sustain meaningful work across the career lifespan. This is a developmental process which students need to learn before they graduate." It urges higher education institutions to embed employability thinking in their teaching and learning by incorporating what is termed basic literacy, rhetorical literacy, personal and critical literacy, emotional literacy, occupational literacy, and ethical, social and cultural literacy.
The DEI has developed a suggestive framework of what it calls essential employability qualities (EEQ). These qualities, "are not specific to any discipline, field, or industry, but are applicable to most work-based, professional environments; they represent the knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences that help ensure that graduates are not only ready for their first or next job, but also support learners' foundation for a lifetime of engaged employment and participation in the rapidly changing workplace of the 21st century." Graduates with EEQ profile are expected to be communicators, thinkers and problem solvers, inquirers and researchers, collaborators, adaptable, principled and ethical, responsible and professional, and continuous learners.
Equipping students with employability skills and capacities is a continuous process in the context of rapidly changing occupational landscapes. I referred earlier to the disruptions caused by the fourth industrial revolution which will only accelerate as the 21st century unfolds. Automation will lead to the disappearance of many occupations—think of the transport industry with the spread of driverless cars, sales jobs with cashless shops, or medical careers with the spread of machine and digital diagnoses. But new occupations will also emerge, many of which we can't even predict, a prospect that makes the skills of liberal arts education and lifelong learning even more crucial.
We should not be preparing students for this brave new world in the same manner as many of us were educated for the world of the late 20th century. To quote Robert Aoun, President of Northeastern University in the USA that is renowned for its cooperative education, let us provide robot-proof higher education, one that "is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society." The new literacies of the new education include data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy encompassing the humanities, communication and design.
Achieving the ambitious agenda of equipping university students with employability skills, attributes, experiences, and mindsets for the present and future requires the development of effective and mutually beneficial, multifaceted and sustained engagements and partnerships between universities, employers, governments and civil society. Within the universities themselves there is need for institutional commitment at all levels and a compact of accountability between administrators, faculty, and students.
This entails developing robust systems of learning assessment including verification of employability skills, utilization of external information and reviews, integration of career services, and cultivating strong cultures of student, alumni and employer engagement, representation and partnerships in assuring program relevance and quality. Pursuing these goals is fraught with challenges, in terms of striking a balance between the cherished traditions of institutional autonomy and academy freedom, in engaging employers without importing the insidious cultures of what I call the 5Cs of the neo-liberal academy: corporatization of management, consumerization of students, casualization of faculty, commercialization of learning, and commodification of knowledge.
The challenges of developing and fostering employability skills among students in our universities are real and daunting. But as educators we have no choice but to continue striving, with the full support and engagement of governments, intergovernmental agencies, the private sector, non-governmental organisations, and civil society organisations, to provide the best experiential and work integrated learning we can without compromising the enduring and cherished traditions and values of higher education. The consequences of inaction or complacency, of conducting business as usual are too ghastly to contemplate: it is to condemn the hundreds of millions of contemporary African youth and the youths yet to be born to unemployable and unlivable lives. That would be an economic, ethical, and existential tragedy of monumental proportions for which history would never forgive us.
This is an abridged version of a keynote address delivered at Malawi's First International Conference on Higher Education, June 27, 2018.
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