OPINION: On the primacy of the mandate over the moment

Garissa County Executive for Health Ahmednadhir Omar./HANDOUT

In public leadership, the line between performative visibility and genuine responsibility is razor-thin.One chases the cameras at the expense of what must be carried. The other remains anchored in duty, even when the spotlight fades.

For those who work within public systems, the distinction is rarely theoretical. At times, it appears in how quickly conclusions are drawn. Rarely does that speed reflect the full weight of what is involved.

And yet, in moments of attention, it is the most emotionally resonant version of what is visible that prevails. How that response takes shape is not incidental. Much of it reflects how people process complexity under pressure. Accordingly, how that visibility is exercised matters more than is generally acknowledged. As a consequence, the integrity of visibility rests on whether it is anchored in responsibility.

Left to its best use, visibility brings institutions into the public eye and enables scrutiny. It makes power answerable in ways that strengthen accountability. Misused, however, visibility can be directed toward conclusions that are too clean to be complete. More often, the work beneath is overlooked.

When visibility is employed in pursuit of private interests under the cover of public purpose, it distorts the very accountability it is meant to serve. Its logic is immediate. It favours simplicity. It prefers conclusions that can be delivered with emotional force and absorbed quickly. It is, by nature, responsive to the moment.

This is most evident when public platforms are used to challenge administrative processes that arise from lawful mandate, casting public servants who act in the public interest as deficient or suspect.

Responsibility operates under exacting conditions. It contends with uncertainty. It proceeds through process. It carries consequence long after attention has moved on. It does not always offer immediate answers, because it remains with the problem until those answers are earned. Visibility, by contrast, carries none of the burden borne by those responsible for resolving the issue. 

Public systems are governed by obligations that do not recede when attention shifts. They hold under pressure, over time, through decisions that balance law, resources, and consequence. That work is continuous, and much of it attracts little attention.

A single point, selectively framed, can be used to construct a broader narrative of decline. To the casual observer, such framing is difficult to resist. In practice, system performance is understood through the interaction of multiple connected processes, including staffing, supply chains, regulation, and coordination across levels of government, each requiring sustained attention, measured judgment, and the discipline to see them through.

In moments of public attention, this gap allows complex issues in public sector administration to be easily reduced into simple narratives of systemic failure. The reduction is compelling. It travels faster than the work it displaces. It satisfies the demand for clarity, at the cost of accuracy.

When visibility, untethered from responsibility, begins to shape perception more than responsibility shapes outcomes, governance itself changes. The effect is not merely rhetorical; it alters the conditions within which decisions are made. Leaders start prioritising what must be seen to be done over what must actually be done.

This tension is structurally managed within the Constitution. It distributes roles across institutions while anchoring responsibility in defined mandates. It balances the right to question with the duty to deliver. Those who raise questions operate under one set of expectations. Those charged with implementation labour under another.

Where performative visibility is mistaken for responsibility, the moment triumphs over the mandate. Processes weaken. Trust erodes. And the systems Kenyans rely on for service delivery in health, education and infrastructure lose the steady attention they require.

Public service, in all its forms, demands two disciplines: the moral courage to keep visibility anchored in responsibility, and the patience to carry responsibility beyond the fleeting moment, until the work holds, as it must.

The writer is the Garissa County Executive for Health