On December 1, 2016, Parliament passed a Bill proposed by the parliamentary Justice and Legal committee requiring that all aspirants for National Assembly seats must be degree holders from recognised universities.
The Bill raised consternation among MPs, many of whom had already served in the House without the required academic qualification, and within a week, it was dead in the water.
The reason was simple; 2017 was an election year and few of them relished the idea of being locked out of the feeding trough.
This was not the first time that MPs had lobbied to defeat the constitutional recommendation through an amendment; it happened in 2003, and there is little likelihood that legislators will ever let the little matter of lack of a degree stand in the way of their quest for power.
In the same way that the same MPs worked hard to water down the requirements of Chapter 6 of the Constitution on Leadership and Integrity, they are not likely to yield soon to the common sense recommendation that the nominees should be men and women without a dark past.
It is, therefore, interesting that the same MPs should be concerned about the educational attainments and moral probity of those picked to head government ministries.
And indeed, they have reason to be concerned. Among current and past Cabinet Secretaries are men and women who should not be holding those positions due to their demonstrable ignorance and lackadaisical attitude. Some of them owe their positions to their loyalty, while others are merely beneficiaries of regional balancing.
Why Parliament, through the Leader of Majority Aden Duale, Minority Leader John Mbadi and others, should so belatedly realise that the vetting the House had been carrying out in the past was not only too casual and inconsequential but also a dereliction of duty is anyone’s guess. Said Mr Duale: “We don’t want a situation where you approve a nominee then three weeks later they are being arrested for tax evasion and other related integrity issues.”
Mr Mbadi agrees, adding that Parliament is not equipped to know whether any nominee has a criminal past, which is why investigative agencies like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Authority and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations should be involved to find out whether the nominees have integrity issues which might pop up sooner or later.
So should the Kenya Revenue Authority to check whether the nominees are tax compliant.
Undoubtedly, MPs would also want to know whether the nominees are proud owners of fake degrees.
However, there is one catch in these altruistically laudable sentiments; the MPs themselves are hardly ever vetted, either by their parties during nominations, or by the electoral commission, whose core mandate it is to separate the wheat from the chaff.
As a result, some really unsavoury characters that are wildly popular keep getting elected and promptly go back to their old ways, which have nothing to do with servant leadership. Are these the men and women to hold court over Cabinet nominees?
But these things should be the least of anyone’s worries. The most dangerous individuals in this context are those whose mission appears to be to loot and plunder the country’s resources with complete impunity, oftentimes at the behest of their masters. It is becoming clear that corruption in Kenya starts at the top, but in most cases, when the pilferage is discovered, it is the minions who suffer.
We have seen people who had no idea of what they were supposed to do land these highly responsible positions and proceed to mess up everything.
We have seen highly educated Cabinet Secretaries appointed, whose mission in life seemed to perfect the art of destroying instead of managing the country’s economy.
We have seen chaps come up with grandiose infrastructure projects whose main objective was to turn them into conduits for siphoning public funds. We have seen exceptionally mediocre individuals being co-opted into the Cabinet, and this with the passive connivance of Parliament. We have seen them all come and go, whining all the way.
There are reasons why a proper formal education and integrity are absolutely essential in leadership. It is counter-intuitive to argue, as some MPs do, that you don’t need a degree to lead because the majority of those being led do not have degrees either.
That could very well be true, especially as some of the most highly educated fellows have also turned out to be the most efficient rogues, but as far as I know, a little above-average education has never hurt anyone.
Indeed, the truth is quite the opposite. As classical philosopher Plato argues in one of his works, “until philosophers become kings, and the princes of the world have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never have rest from their evils.” In this paraphrase of Plato’s diagnosis, the philosophers are men and women in leadership who can distinguish between good and evil and opt for the former, while the cities are nation states like Kenya. And no amount of vetting will make any difference unless the vetters are themselves clean.
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