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Governance and Ethics: The challenge of many African governments and their institutions

By: Jerry Okungu

[ Posted On: 2006-09-01 ]

This article has been inspired by the debate currently gaining currency in East Africa that Tanzania is not keen on the East African Community- least of all the East African integration due to its historical fear of capitalist Kenyan mentality of dominating the social and economic fabric of the community.

And they have a point if history is anything to go by.

At the height of the ideological warfare between Kenya and Tanzania in the mid 1970s, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere loathed Kenya's capitalist appetite so much that he termed Kenya a man-eat-man society. In response to the derogatory remark, then Kenya's Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, who had no time for Nyerere's socialist ideals rebutted that Nyerere's Tanzania was a dog-eat-dog society, implying that there was nothing to eat there!

Nyerere, Kenyatta, Obote and Amin are long dead, but the bitterness, the jealousy and the rivalry among the three sister states still lingers on. The young generation seem to have inherited this bad blood, this mistrust that has refused to go away.

On another level, sceptics have started throwing balls at NEPAD on several fronts.

French speaking West Africa is scared stiff of South African English speaking domination. Economic blocks like the EAC that should benefit from NEPAD initiative are scared that NEPAD might gain currency and steal the show. At the local level, some line ministries are not keen on letting NEPAD blossom for fear that it may take away some of their responsibilities.

Looked at more objectively, these fears are a necessary evil that the continent must deal with to get it out of the morass that it now finds itself. They are fears fuelled by our inability to think through initiatives before we embark on them. These are fears that have been brought about by the citizens of Africa abdicating their responsibilities and delegating all the thinking to their seasonal political leaders. They are fears born out of lack of credible institutions to carry our development agenda beyond the leadership of a single generation. If it were not so, Africa would today not be debating Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie, Jomo Kenyatta, Nyerere and Abdel Nasser's dreams of a United States of Africa nearly fifty years later.

Are governance, ethics and moral rectitude the bane of our problems at the national and continental level? Why has Africa become the killing field of all manner of good initiatives? Why is it that when we start a new initiative like the EAC, NEPAD, IGAD, APRM or the African Development Bank, it gains more currency outside Africa faster than it does at home?

Part of the problem we have in Africa is that we see politics and relationships in everything we do. We start new institutions; give them to the politically correct individuals who have no clue about their missions and goals. We give them to bureaucrats who are tired and visionless.

Sooner rather than later, our grand ideas stop glittering and we lose interest.

We never stop to set up these institutions on the basis of good governance, best practices, social ethics and moral standards.

Talking of governance, I would like to believe that it is the way we conduct ourselves, relate to one another and practice those basic natural laws that should improve our relations with one another. Those laws are according to Christians, the very foundations of God's Ten Commandments that Jesus reviewed and made better.

In Jesus' teachings, he emphasized love for our neighbour, love for one another and the virtue of giving and sharing; not taking and keeping for ourselves.

If we give and share what we have or what there is for the common good, chances of conflicts are likely to be nil. If we grab and keep what belongs to every one around us, we create fertile ground for conflict.

- In sharing we practice fairness and kindness.
- In grabbing, we practice greed and unfairness.
- In doing the latter, we court conflict and violence.

In practising good governance and ethics, as Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, we should turn one more time to our family religious values and structure.

For purposes of this discussion, let us look at the family of Mr. & Mrs. James Mwangi and their four children. In this family of six, let us assume that they are representative of the Government of Kenya. If that be the case, let us assume that the father is the head of the family and therefore head of state. The other adult that should be consulted is Mrs. Mwangi who has a stake in the affairs of this state because she contributes to the management of the affairs of this governance unit.

For purposes of clarity, we can assume that since their four children are still young and must be looked after, fed, clothed, sheltered and taken to school, the only people who can form a cabinet are Mr. and Mrs. Mwangi.

In this elevated position, the responsibility of looking for resources and using the same resources on the rest of the family falls on their four shoulders. If there is any good governance practised in the Mwangi family, it will ensure equitable distribution of resources among the six members of their family; each according to their needs.

For the four children, their recurrent expenditure will entail the following: constant supply of food, healthcare, clothing, shelter, transportation, education and any incidentals according to their needs. You may want to think of the children in terms of citizens of different provinces of Kenya with their own needs.

For the adults whose needs and responsibility will stretch beyond recurrent expenditure, they will take the responsibility of securing the future of everybody in the family. They will invest in infrastructure like decent shelter, environment, transport system, medical and life insurance policies, investment in income generating activities and generally want to guarantee the happiness and success of every one in the family even after they are long gone.

If on the other hand the leading members of the family, the only income earners fail to sit around the table to pull their resources together and plan collectively how to best spend their earnings, the family would soon be in deep trouble. If husband and wife refuse to agree on how to run their household, if the husband beats up the wife and grabs her income every month to go and spend it on useless ventures like drinking with other men and women in local bars, while wife and children walk hungry, naked and unable to go to school, we shall be seeing trouble brewing in the family that may end up in the death of the wife, husband or all members of the family.

This is the same misery that bad governance can bring to a whole nation.

Ethics on the other hand is to accept to live by the codes of social norms, practice acceptable behaviour as prescribed by society. If society abhors nudity, bad language and other immoral acts, it is important to abide by them.

If society abhors unfair practices like lying, cheating, stealing, killing or breaking promises, it is important to abide by them and you will be at peace with one another and yourself.

Institutions built on the tenets of good governance and ethical practices tend to grow stronger and last longer. Those ones that are built on graft, greed, dishonesty, rivalry, uncontrolled ambitions and selfishness are bound to fall like a house of cards.

Institutions built on good governance; ethics and mutual trust tend to endure all odds to survive the worst of crises.

As leaders in our society, it is our responsibility to show that we can walk the talk.

Let us preach water if we are ready to drink it.

Let us be ready to accord due credit to members of our family that have served us well and have added value to our lives. Let us reward each according to their labour not according to how much we like their faces, their tribes, regions and villages they come from.

Let us not fear the successful ones and achievers among us.

Ethics and moral rectitude breed confidence, the good feeling that we are doing the right thing according to the laws of nature.

In politics, as in every day life, ambition per se is not a bad thing; in fact it is the engine with which success is propelled. However, unbridled ambition is like a moving train without a driver. Nobody knows when it will stop and how. However, one thing can be guaranteed when such a train starts to move. Some one will get hurt badly.

Talking of ambition, were William Shakespeare's tragic characters like Marcus Brutus, Macbeth and Othello naturally ambitious or was ambition planted in their minds by Marcus Cassius, Lady Macbeth and Iago? Some times it is our closest friends and relatives that drive us into negative ambitions with destructive consequences.

Lastly unbridled ambition is neither the stuff that good governance deserves nor is it one of acceptable ethical behaviour that a civilized society will condone.

Let us build our institutions on the rocky foundations of good governance and acceptable social values based on moral standards of our society.

- This is what Kenya needs
- It is what East Africa needs
- It is what Africa needs.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

Jerry Okungu is a freelance political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. Jerry also serves as a Board Director at The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Jerry has written extensively on issues affecting Kenya and the rest of Africa over the years. Other articles written by Jerry Okungu are available at this location

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