Some years ago, I accompanied a friend of mine to the offices of a Cabinet minister – what would now be a Cabinet secretary.
I had no business with the minister myself. The only reason I was there at all, is that my friend had told me that there would very likely be a long wait, and the two of us could have a long-delayed chat while we waited. Also, I would have to remain behind in the waiting room when his turn came to go in and see the minister.
Of particular interest – and a lesson to me in the ways of government – were the other people who were with us in what was the “VIP waiting room.”
They were no ordinary Kenyans. They were all reasonably prominent people, including a former Cabinet minister; a serving assistant minister; two serving MPs; and a couple of very elegantly dressed young men, who had in their hands what looked like an elaborately packaged bottle they hoped to give the minister.
I believe that if that visit had taken place in the current dispensation, there would have been at least one governor in that VIP waiting room.
As it is, not one of us got to talk to the Big Man. He popped in briefly and explained that he had been summoned to State House and had no idea when he would return. But, he said, those willing to wait should do so, and he had asked his staff to serve tea.
You might think that the VIP waiting room emptied as soon as he left. But that is not how it is, in the corridors of power. In fact, the only people who left were my friend and I; and the serving assistant minister.
All the others remained waiting, in the hope that the Big Man would not take too long at State House. One of the elegantly dressed young men – no doubt a veteran of such VIP waiting rooms – took out a book and began reading it.
My friend later explained this to me saying, “There are some problems which can only be solved in a minister’s office, or at State House. And the greater your status within Kenya, the more likely that you will have to go to such places in pursuit of a resolution to your problem.”
I thought back on this incident as I saw the wrath of the ODM partisans descend on Busia Governor Paul Otuoma, who hosted President William Ruto in his county over the weekend.
Reportedly, Otuoma had declared that he was keen to work with the central government – and specifically with President Ruto – in order to “bring development” to the people who had voted him in as governor.
And though I suspect that the governor will pay a price for his closeness to the President, I could not help but sympathise.
The fact is that – as my friend put it back then – some problems can only be solved through the active intervention of a Cabinet secretary, or by a visit to State House.
Of course, there are national projects which once launched will be implemented no matter who is elected president. As an example of this, I would offer the Dongo Kundu bypass road network which creates a direct link between Mombasa Island (and especially Mombasa Airport) and the South Coast, opening up much of Kwale county for the expansion of coastal tourism. I could also mention the expansion of the Port of Mombasa, and the proposed Special Economic Zone adjacent to the port.
The governors of Kwale and Mombasa would not need to spend hours in any VIP waiting rooms hoping to get those projects prioritised, even though the projects are geographically in those two counties.
But consider such things as the big new water supply project that President Ruto launched in Malakisi (in Busia county), or the proposed Busia County Export Processing Zone.
Those are projects that would justify a governor spending hours in some VIP waiting room, hoping to get some assurance that his projects would be prioritised. And welcoming the President with open arms if he deigned to turn up in Busia to launch any such regional project.