The blessing of potholes: ask Kibaki what happened when he fixed them

Motorists avoid potholes on the Nyerere Avenue in Mombasa on December 9, 2014. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

In Summary

• Unlike the minister of old who needed to do something short-term for the next election, today they can afford to take a long-term view and look at the broad combination of things that will help get their boss, in this case President Uhuru Kenyatta, re-elected.
• There is a lot of middle-class raving going on, especially on social media, about the state of Kenya’s roads, floods, and so on. They are creating an impression that the Kenyatta government is failing or has failed.
• Kibaki, although he was being accused of cheating his ODM partners in the rocky grand coalition government, was seriously tinkering with stuff — building roads and new airport terminals, closing up potholes, putting up street lights, and well-lit malls were being opened.

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
More by this Author

After the rains, the state of many roads in Nairobi is a mess, although attempts are being made to patch some of them up. On the whole, for the past two years, the progress made in smoothing out the streets has been lost.

The folks I ask tell me it is due to a series of factors, including the shift to the devolved county system and a technocratic Cabinet under the new Constitution.

How, you might say? Well, in the old Constitution days everything was about raw politics and being a minister was a launch pad for you to run for president or to defend your parliamentary seat.

Thus if you were, for example, minister for Roads and you did a wonderful job, you could stand for president and tell voters that if they elected you, you would bring the same level of efficiency to running the country. In short, you provided service as a bribe for future votes.

Today, the ministers (Cabinet secretaries) are technocrats who do not do those rowdy political rallies with a fedora hat on their heads and an unwieldy walking stick in the right hand.

Unlike the minister of old who needed to do something short-term for the next election, today they can afford to take a long-term view and look at the broad combination of things that will help get their boss, in this case President Uhuru Kenyatta, re-elected.

WALKING NATION

At the county level, though, the picture is more complex and distressing — to the middle class. A governor will probably not get re-elected by fixing potholes because the majority of voters in Nairobi, for example, do not have cars and do not even take a matatu to work. They walk.

Thus if the cost of fixing a couple of potholes is Sh500,000 and that money can pay for the installation of 50 public water taps in Mathare and Kibera slums, the path to winning re-election is the water, used by 15 per cent of your voters, than the potholes, on roads used by 1.5 per cent.

That said, it is great politics to fix potholes and streetlights.

There is a lot of middle-class raving going on, especially on social media, about the state of Kenya’s roads, floods, and so on. They are creating an impression that the Kenyatta government is failing or has failed.

The reality might be different, but for now we have a battle of impressions on our hands.

Which takes us back to 2007. Though some post-Kanu reconstruction work had been done after Mwai Kibaki’s election at the end of 2002, it was not in your face.

Thus the 2007 elections arrived with the same grumbling over the state of roads and services. The election was a fiasco and we ended up with the post-election violence.

However, old man Kibaki seemed to have taken away the right lessons from 2007. He sorted out the middle class by fixing the roads and streetlights.

EXUDE PROMISE

In Nairobi, additionally they cleaned out the dirty and blocked alleys and put lights there. People stopped urinating (and defecating) in the alleys and Nairobi was brighter and smelt less offensive.

I do not exactly live in the city centre, but for the first time I could drive all the way home without a single pothole and along lit streets.

A sense, possibly even illusion, of progress crept upon the land. Human beings are like that. We look towards where the lights are because they exude promise. No one steps out on their balcony at night to stare into the darkness.

Thus when the referendum vote came in 2010, middle class fellows who never used to vote in the past trooped out in their Ray Ban glasses, baseball caps, and Moses sandals (umbrellas in tow) to vote. It was a resounding victory for the “Yes” campaign.

Kibaki, although he was being accused of cheating his ODM partners in the rocky grand coalition government, was seriously tinkering with stuff — building roads and new airport terminals, closing up potholes, putting up street lights, and well-lit malls were being opened.

The lights and smooth roads do not put ugali on the table, of course, but they create a nice warm fuzzy feeling, a sense that the country is going somewhere.

Once the chattering class is happy and enthusiastic, you have the peace to do the things that bring in big votes — like taking water to and building public toilets in the slums. Everyone wins.

The author is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter@cobbo3