MUGA: Kenyans need to define what they mean by development

By my count, we are just about 18 months to the next general election. So, predictably, political temperatures are rising, and those currently holding elective office are fighting to neutralise the insulting remarks being flung at them by their likely opponents.

A constant accusation you will hear directed at a current office holder takes this form: “He has done nothing. He has failed to deliver development. So, he will be going home very early in the morning on election day.”

Whenever I hear this kind of talk, it afflicts me with what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance” – defined as “a state of mental discomfort that occurs when a person holds beliefs or opinions that are inconsistent.”

In my specific case, the problem I face is that I will sometimes know – personally – the politician being spoken of as having “done nothing”. And I will have heard from him or her the details of the projects they have undertaken during the past four years or so that they were in office.

While many of these projects may well be public relations gimmicks, there will usually also be a number of programmes that produce quantifiable results. And yet here is a constituent of the MP or governor, very convincingly declaring that the leader has “done nothing”.

Having given this matter some thought, I now believe that it all depends on what you define as “development”.

Consider the example of public infrastructure at the county level.

About five years ago, the Nairobi-Nanyuki railway line, which had long fallen into disuse, was rehabilitated mostly through funding by the Kenya Pipeline Company, after years of lobbying by the governors of Central Kenya counties.

This railway goes through five counties – Kiambu, Muranga, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Laikipia – and was intended to make movement of people and goods through these counties, and to and from Nairobi, much easier as well as safer.

And so I have to wonder: did the people of those counties consider the revival of a railway that had not been in use for decades to be a good example of “development delivered”?

Did this then, in any way, influence their vote in the 2023 general election?

Then we have, in recent years, seen a variety of programmes intended to keep children in school. Specifically, the children of the very poorest Kenyans, who need all the help they can get to just get by from day to day.

There are programmes that seek to make female sanitary products available to all schoolgirls. Even more common are programmes for free (and highly nutritious) school meals. Building of modern ablution blocks also falls into this category of initiatives that make the school experience better for the children.

So once again I ask: would these count as development projects? And if they do, would a singular dedication to providing these benefits improve a governor’s chances for re-election?

At the presidential election level, it is even more difficult to figure out what the voting public will acknowledge as “development” and show their gratitude over, by voting for the president to continue his tenure at State House.

The “affordable housing” projects currently underway in various cities and towns all over Kenya provide the best examples of “development projects” that Kenyans have been promised for many years, and only now – for the first time – seem to be somewhat close to fulfilment.

Depending on whom you believe, by now either 300,000 or 140,000 units have been built.

But the estimated demand is about two million such units.

So, no matter how great an effort may be made to scale up construction, come the 2027 general election, the great majority of those who had dreamt of becoming homeowners through this programme will have been disappointed.

The question then is, will those who are disappointed nonetheless feel grateful to President William Ruto, and also feel that he deserves another term in office so that he can pursue this programme with even more vigour?

Or will they feel that the President has let them down; failed to deliver the affordable houses he promised them; and that they must now vote for someone else who might do better?