In his remarkable new book, ‘Kizza Besigye and Uganda’s
Unfinished Revolution’, Daniel Kalinaki writes about a Ugandan opposition leader’s
flight into exile. Col. Samson Mande,
who had fallen out with President Museveni, was contemplating his choices for
his exile, and was looking at his different options. When he considered Kenya,
Kalinaki writes, the country’s ‘notoriously corrupt security services were
likely to auction him to the highest bidder’. Of course, any Kenyan reading that
would do so with a feeling of weary, resigned familiarity.
Regular surveys put the police near the bottom of trusted
institutions, and every incident of incompetence, or venality, digs the hole a
little deeper. It almost goes without saying that a country’s security services
should be the most trusted institutions in a country – totally above reproach
and suspicion. Their responsibility is so grave, and consequences of their
dereliction of duty so severe, that we cannot afford to have any doubt
expressed about their lack of professionalism or effectiveness.
The police force in Kenya is a colonial construct, built to
be a buffer between the colonial state and its subjects. Since independence,
this design flaw has continued. The police still act – many times – in the
interests of different elites and against the interests of ordinary citizens.
If there is a conflict between the two, such as when petty potentates break all
sorts of traffic rules, police are usually interested in looking the other way,
or even abetting the breaking of these rules by actively enabling wrong
behaviour.
The latest blow to the prestige of the police is the
suggestion that the force should recruit from the legions of primary school
leavers who cannot get a place in secondary school. On the face of it, you can
understand such a demand – the police force has traditionally served as a
labour sink. It – together with the military – has been the institution in
which to get a job if you’ve tried and failed at all others. The motivation to
get a job in the police is less a desire to protect and serve, and more the
need to be employed. Of course, the force does recruit graduates and
specialists, but things are such that these prized assets are often quickly recruited
away by international security agencies, or other better-paying,
better-organised institutions.
But of course you know all this. A litany of complaints
about the Kenya police would be lengthy but dull, because it has been documented
everywhere, including in reform-minded reports and, ultimately, the 2010
constitution. It should worry us that the institution is in such a mess, but it
would serve as no surprise.
What should be a cause of deep concern, though, is that the
police are not alone in their status as an institution that has lost public
confidence. There is almost no sector in Kenya that has not been afflicted by a
decline in standards that has led to a dangerous decline in trust. It starts
with a primary education system in which examinations, student selection and
placement and funding have been gravely politicised. The argument over whether
private primary school students should access public secondary schools on the
same basis as public primary school students masks a much deeper debate over
elitism, the decline of public services and the unwillingness or inability of
policymakers and politicians to conduct root-and-branch reform.
This is even before you get to the decay in the tertiary
sector. The expose by Dennis Okari on NTV a week ago concentrated on just one
institution – the grandiloquently named Nairobi Aviation College – but similar
stories can be told about almost any institution of ‘higher learning’ in the
country. Because the profit motive has overtaken any other consideration in the
establishment and running of educational institutions, standards are almost
non-existent. Students sign up for degree and diploma courses, not because of
any academic enthusiasm, but because they need papers for jobs and promotions.
Universities and colleges will take just about anyone, as long as they can
afford the fee. The decline in standards is disguised by being named ‘parallel’
courses, or ‘Module B’, but the effect is the same – you may not have made it
on the merits of your grades, but your financial ability will more than make up
the difference.
Of course, higher education should not be made the preserve
of a tiny elite, however chosen. But educational institutions are like banks.
They are only as good as their reputation, and the instant that goes to the
dogs, no amount of slick advertising or philanthropy will rescue it.
The decline is spreading, of course, to the media as well.
We used to be the repository of, at the very least, good language, but we’re
slowly sliding down the slippery slope of bad grammar, terrible spelling and an
unwillingness to defend good syntax against carelessness and apathy.
There will be consequences. The moment that citizens decide
that they cannot trust public services, they will retreat into privatisation of
these. The home schooling movement in Kenya is growing, enabled by parents who
feel that the public education system does not serve their purposes. A growing
legion of Kenyans is signing up for firearm licences, convinced that a gun in
the hand is worth more than a police force whose effectiveness cannot be relied
on.
We’ve sown the wind of declining standards and an
indifferent attitude. We’ll soon reap the whirlwind of an undereducated,
dangerous populace.
Also published in the Business Daily on 10 February 2015 at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/Public-institutions-rot-heralds-a-bleak-future/-/539548/2618530/-/nrb7w/-/index.html
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