You may have seen one of those old grainy colonial-era video clips, in which Jomo Kenyatta, only recently released from detention, is asked by an interviewer, “How soon do you want Kenya to be independent?” and he answers very aggressively, “Today”.
This answer may well appear as a piece of standard showmanship, of the kind that the founding president was famous for. But there was a sinister implication behind that question:
For around the time when the series of Lancaster House Conferences on Kenyan independence was being held, the country we now call DR Congo was already independent. And the arrival of independence in that country had been accompanied by all kinds of destabilising events, including a serious secessionist movement in Katanga; a mass exit from Congo of Belgian colonial civil servants and technocrats; etc.
This was widely seen as “proof” that if any African nation under colonial rule was granted independence “too soon”, then economic chaos and civil strife would be inevitable.
But Jomo Kenyatta and the other leading nationalists of the time insisted on immediate independence; and when it came it was followed by a fairly orderly transition from a colonial administration to a government consisting entirely of Indigenous administrators and technocrats.
It was an example of how political will combined with the kind of efficient administration we had back then, can bring about a successful outcome in a situation where chaos had been predicted.
But there is a more recent example of this kind of thing, though on a smaller scale. We now know from those who witnessed the events that in the early days of the Kibaki government, the finance minister of the time, David Mwiraria, was honest enough to tell President Mwai Kibaki that the government simply could not afford the free primary education programme he had promised Kenyans during his campaigns.
Kibaki refused to accept this answer and insisted that the money simply had to be found. Mwiraria went back to the mandarins at the Treasury and told them what the president had said; and somehow (and with some donor support) the money was found that enabled an astonishing 1.5 million children who had dropped out of school during the President Daniel Moi era to return to the classroom.
Once again, political will proved capable of delivering that which had seemed to be impossible.
I mention these two cases to make a point: that what a government can deliver may be much more than appears to “logically” be the case. And that what appears to be an insane gamble or an irresponsible promise, can turn out to be well within reach.
This perspective should shed some light on the ongoing public debate between the supporters of the two key rivals for the presidency, the Deputy President Dr William Ruto and the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Both these men have made sweeping promises over the fight to end poverty in Kenya, which their critics say are absurd and unrealistic.
Dr Ruto effectively proposes to place a huge bet on a vast increase in the funds available for microcredit loans, so that the poor can borrow and invest their way out of poverty. While Raila’s idea for dealing with poverty is to establish some form of Universal Basic Income as a safety net.
In both cases, the critics ask, “Where will the money come from?”
Well, I would argue that the real issue here is whether there is adequate political will – and whether there will be administrative competence – behind either of these initiatives.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that real progress at the national level is rarely made unless the top leadership attempts something that can readily be criticised by declaring that “The government cannot afford it”.
And not just here in Kenya. Just about every country has some examples of a project that was judged to be far too expensive when it was initiated. But which later proved to be a huge step forward for that country.
With enough political will, what had seemed to be utterly beyond reach can turn out to have been very manageable.
“WATCH: The latest videos from the Star”