ANALYSIS | Fixation with BBI antithetical to Kenya’s development aspirations

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 31 – A cloud of legal showdown hangs over Kenya as the Building Bridges Secretariat moves to the Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the Court of Appeal ruling on the constitutional change bid.

While it is the constitutional right of every Kenyan to seek legal redress, the BBI process has taken the energy out of Kenyans in many ways, in the end exposing the country to some of the injustices it seeks to correct.

A key pillar of the BBI was to cement national unity by bringing together political enemies. Yet the process has birthed an acrimonious relationship between the President and his Deputy; splitting the government in the middle, with far reaching governance implications. Despite constitutionally holding office, Deputy President William Ruto has literally been cut off government affairs.

Ipso facto, Ruto has proceeded to engage in self-serving political rhetoric and campaigns at the expense of service delivery to the citizens footing the bill for his government largesse.

The opposition vanguard, the National Super Alliance has since disintegrated – with the principals clandestinely being mainstreamed into government operations under the auspices of the handshake that spawned the BBI.

Government excesses such as police brutality, punitive taxes and corruption that would draw the attention of the opposition watchdogs now continue unabated. Kenyans are losing their lives in the hands of trigger-happy police officers while the cost of living has become unbearable with over two million Kenyans facing death by starvation.

While some of the intentions of the BBI were certainly noble such as increased funding to the counties, political inclusiveness and stronger regime to contain graft, the allure of the constitutional reforms distracted the state from undertaking more urgent and citizen-centred tasks.

Take the case of the Covid-19 global pandemic. As the global health crisis made emphatic entry into different jurisdictions around the world in early 2020, the promoters of BBI were busy traversing the country with scheduled public rallies that attracted huge crowds.

Thousands of Kenyans were lured into such political rallies that later turned out to be super spreader events for the Covid-19 disease. With little effort from government to take early and rational containment measures, the virus took hold, sickening hundreds of Kenyans.

Healthcare workers protective decried lack of essential medical supplies such as protective clothing, respirators, testing kits. Meanwhile there were resources for political mobilization as the alliance of the state and opposition surged forward with the constitutional reforms agenda.

The donations and loans from multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund aimed at fighting the pandemic were soon gobbled by government officials and influential businessmen through the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency.

Nothing became of the prosecution recommendations for some 15 top government officials found complicit by the investigative agencies.

Millions of Kenyans have since lost their livelihoods as a result of the social restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the pandemic – pushing many households into the unforgiving arms of poverty.

Yet, more deadly and transmissible variants of Covid-19 causing virus are fueling new waves of infections in the country.  Vaccinations which are now deemed to be the most rational and sustainable way of the pandemic remains dismal.

Instead of ramping up inoculations, the state is focused on salvaging the BBI bill that has twice been declared unconstitutional, null and void by Kenyan courts.

To push the BBI legal war to Kenya’s apex court would be to fatigue Kenyans with a legal process whose side effects numb the very positive outcomes it intended to achieve. President Kenyatta should prioritize the fight against the pandemic in which adequate supply and uptake of vaccines should take centre stage.

Secondly, the government should roll out progressive economic stimulus programmes that can reverse the undesirable economic effects the pandemic has visited on Kenyans.

It is dumbfounding that the in the year that Kenyans suffered the most economic fallout as a result of the global health crisis, Kenya Revenue Authority would proceed to collect record taxes, even gifting staff bonuses.

Kenyans deserve better and the BBI should not be an excuse to turn a blind eye on the many socio-economic ills afflicting our society.