Former CS Justin Muturi, addressing the media at Ufungamano house on 02, April, 2025. Giving a reason why he was sacked, he told the media that because he persistently questioned the abduction, torture and murder of the young people. [Jenipher Wachie, Standard]
“Sema ikutoke” is the Kenyan version of the truth will set you free. The high-voltage political acrimonious discourse between the current and former Kenya Kwanza top leaders is giving us, the ordinary Kenyans, the inside story of what goes on in the political elite power circles. We would never have known why the economy is in bad shape, for example, were it not for the internal political differences that have led to fallouts. If the allegations and counter-allegations are finally found to be true, we know our governance structures are weak.
This is one of the most opportune times in our history when we need to start listening to what our leaders are saying. Either party is claiming truth. We need to seize this moment to reflect on political conversations in high places. We need to suspend our judgment for a moment and listen.
Kenyans are ethnically divided on the political front. We are deeply tribal. When Gen Z rose to drive us out of this self-annihilating practice, we quickly descended on them to ensure they were quiet in their quarters. However, the high-level verbal political attacks we have experienced in the past several months remind us that we live in bad faith. We are in denial that our systems of governance are not delivering. We are pushing the government to deliver when the wheels of its systems are off the rails.
The hard-hitting claims and counterclaims are good material for quiet reflections on the identities we have constructed for ourselves in the past decade or so that are now being exposed. The reflection materials we are continually receiving are not about the parties squaring it out. They are about the country. They are about “we, the people.” They are about government service delivery. The content is, therefore, rich for a retreat.
The statements emerging from all the exchanges touch on several areas, including national security, agriculture, education, devolution, electoral justice, tax justice, and government service delivery.
For those who are always victims of political divisions, it is our time to reflect without pandering to this or that side. Something very profound is being communicated to us. The parties in conflict are speaking to us, which explains why they use the media to reach us. If they did this behind closed doors, we would not hear or know anything about the claims being announced to us.
Our listening should centre around three basic questions: Why are the political antagonists speaking to us so eloquently about their grievances? What are the claims, and which ones deserve our interventions? Based on the deep revelations that have been made in public, what interventions and through which processes should we strengthen our governance systems?
Listening keenly to the political claims reverberating across the country, we cannot but sober up and begin to see that the political differences are our business. This is not about a call for dialogue. This is about proactively examining where we could fix our governance systems to function better regardless of who is in power.
From a psychological and spiritual perspective, listening is critical in self-examination. We are a country that has refused to enter into a productive reconciliation process despite many major political conflicts, especially post-general elections. These unresolved, deep-seated grievances during elections might be taking root in ways we do not know. The strong overtones of tribalism, nepotism, unabated corruption, victimisation, and revenge missions stem from weak systems of governance.
These early warning signs of polarisation, as we have unlawfully engaged in the 2027 election campaigns, are a call to stop, listen, and discern strategies to allow politics to run its course without undermining the pillars of nation-building. Politics has its wicked ways of sorting out differences. However, there is a red line. The moment we realise politics is putting citizens at risk of poverty, poor service delivery or insecurity, it is no longer about “them.” It is about all of us.
Listening is a virtue. Let us use it to decipher truth from the rising, antagonising political conversations on our media platforms. For truth will set us free.
Dr Mokua is Executive Director of Loyola Centre for Media and Communication
By Elias Mokua