How Kenya can creatively manage the ethnic question

Kenyans celebrate Jamhuri Day at Moi Sports Centre in Kasarani, Nairobi County, on December 12, 2017. By speaking our neighbours languages freely, we can create a society that lives in harmony and unity of purpose. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Mastery of languages is a powerful means by which human beings communicate and relate.
  • Embracing other languages can enhance national cohesion, integration and security faster than any other means.

Kenya is blessed with great diversity of numerous ethnic groups, who invaluably speak different languages.

This is an advantage if only we celebrate it as a gift.

However it is a fact of life that to effectively communicate with each other we must make a deliberate and conscious effort to learn our compatriots languages.

This explains why the English people were able to dominate the world through promotion of their language.

Today, English is the universal language of commerce, trade and diplomacy.

Quite often, when we observe persons from one ethnic community speak another’s language, the conversation is usually very friendly.

UNITY

The lesson we can take from this experience is that it is time we took language as a strategy of unifying Kenyans, and especially now that we are implementing devolution.

I propose a law requiring counties to establish language centres with a mandate to teach at least four languages that are not commonly spoken in one’s home county.

The logistical and cost implications notwithstanding, the idea will go a long way in advancing the cause of our nationhood in the long-term.

These centres should have requisite libraries coupled with proficient linguists.

If the language centres are adopted with the support of both national and county governments, the endeavour will germinate the seed that will positively respond to the challenge that has been a burden to millions of our people since independence.

NATIONAL COHESION

Mastery of languages is a powerful means by which human beings communicate and relate.

All of us are neighbours of others but have no luxury of choice who that person is or should be, hence we can as well learn their languages.

Embracing other languages can enhance national cohesion, integration and security faster than any other means.

This however does not mean knowledge of other languages alone will be a panacea for all our problems.

Somalia is a good example of how one nation can speak one language, observe the same culture and religion but still be divided through clannism.

However, knowledge of languages is a better alternative than doing nothing about our divisions.

PUBLIC FUNDS
The more Kenyans realise that there is no exclusivity to mother tongue, the more they will appreciate the richness and value of different cultures and languages.

If the language centres can be extended to constituencies, the consolidation of our national unity will be easier and quicker.

By speaking our neighbours languages freely, we can create a society that lives in harmony and unity of purpose, driven by mature politics underpinned by tolerance.

Above all, it is time we rationalized the employment policies of county governments to align them with budgetary parameters and constraints.

The residents of the 47 counties can hardly tell how money allocated to them or collected through levies is utilised.

DEBT

It is shameful, for example, that Nairobi County owes suppliers and service providers more than Sh60 billion.

It should be a legal requirement that counties publish yearly budgets and balance sheets so the public is well-informed about the usage of its funds.

This will enable the public to monitor and evaluate how their funds are used.

Counties are an excellent model of development but only to the extent they are made transparent and accountable to the people, consistent with Schedule 4 of the Constitution on distribution of functions.

EXPENDITURE

It is a pity that most of the counties are mere employment centres where large portions of income budgets are used to pay salaries and other recurrent expenditures while development allocations are insignificant.

This is a recipe for failure of the county governments’ model.

We therefore need stringent staff employment rationalisation guidelines aligned to the specific needs and functions of counties.

Certainly the experience that has been evidently observed is reckless overemployment of staff, especially immediately preceding the last general election period as a way of political leverage by some outgoing governors.

We have a number of court cases currently under litigation for alleged irregular and overemployment.

Nakuru and Bomet counties are stark examples.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. [email protected]