Citizens are weakest link in fight against corruption
Kenya, like other countries battling against Covid-19, continues to call upon its citizens to embrace individual responsibility, cited as the most effective containment method.
This call is, however, adversely affected by Kenya’s culture of citizen’s indolence on governance issues.
It is irresistible to liken such culture to Thomas Hobbes’s concept of the “Sleeping Sovereign” where he depicts the sovereign as “asleep” during the activities of the government.
The idea is that the sovereign (citizens) could appoint a government, and withdraw entirely, leaving it to operate on its own, and only wake up at some point to replace it (through elections) and return to sleep.
Kivutha Kibwana, buttresses the Hobbesian idea when he notes in his witting Third Liberation Must Free Wanjiku Economically that Wanjiku of the 90s played no role in governance affairs and that upon casting her vote, she exited the public arena until the next election.
It is not far-fetched to opine that although the Constitution, 2010 recognised her as the holder of all sovereign power, she is yet to fully actualise her status and role in governance affairs.
As we face Covid-19, it should not escape our attention that Kenya is befallen by other viruses of comparable magnitude and harm that require citizen responsibility in equal force. At the top is corruption.
Kenyans have been indolent in their role in fighting corruption. In the National Ethics and Corruption Survey Report released by Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in 2019, for instance, 67 per cent of Kenyans who encountered incidences of corruption in 2018 did absolutely nothing about it.
In the Constitution 2010, citizens have codified their aspirations. They want a democratic and accountable state where human rights, equal opportunity, justice, rule of law and effective devolution thrive.
But these aspirations cannot be achieved if they abdicate their responsibilities in the fight against corruption.
The question then is, what should citizens do in executing their constitutional role in this fight?
First, citizens should elect leaders or servants who meet leadership and integrity threshold prescribed in Chapter Six of the Constitution.
Public officials with integrity deficits will often not serve public interest, but prefer to advance personal or sectarian interests.
Ironically, there is evidence of occasions where citizens have embraced such embezzlement and not only elected but also re-elected embezzlers back to office.
In other instances, citizens have held demonstrations in solidarity with senior public officials accused of misuse of public funds under their care and control.
Citizens should , in the words of Odunga J, “isolate and keep social distance” from public leaders who betray public trust.
By supporting impunity and corruption, they derail quest for transformation they aspire for.
Second, citizens should report corruption whenever they encounter it. Notably, devolution was partly aimed at taking governance closer to the people in order to enhance social audits.
Therefore, citizens largely know who in their counties enrich themselves from public coffers.
However, they have decided to “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil,” despite continuous sensitisation by law enforcement agencies on where and how to report such cases.
Third, citizens should embrace public participation in governance affairs. Often, they have been invited through to submit views on key governance issues, but have either kept off the discourse or submitted supporting views to advance interests unrelated to the merit of the process.
Fourth, citizens should also shun corruption. Various corruption surveys show citizens admitting that should an opportunity to engage in corruption arise, they would, without blinking, partake of the vice.
This is a dangerous attitude: it is inconceivable for citizens to glorify the vice despite being its prime victims.
Fifth, there is need for cultural re-engineering and attitude change; this is long overdue.
In many aspects of life, people desire change but ironically, few are prepared to change themselves, despite that cumulative change by individuals culminates into the transformation of a society. — The writer is a governance expert. [email protected].
