Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie strikes at the heart of tribalism when her character in the award winning novel , Half a yellow Sun, declares,
“I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that
identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as
different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white
man came."
The events of the 2007 post election crisis brought the deep philosophical tribulations of a ficttional Nigerian man much closer home. Suddenly we are made aware that our 'Kenyaness' is an illusion, when sh*t hits the fan, we fall back into our tribal nations, we evoke great systems of warrior youth long thought lost to raid murder on our fellow citizens. We are all Kikuyu, Luo, Nandi, Marakwet and what have you.
Our politics is a game of nation against nation, the two most political nations and their affiliates fight for cheiftancy. The Kikuyu nation emerging paramount mostly because of a great majority and accumulation of a wealthy elite. We see their leaders passing on 'national chieftancy' to their respective sons either by fault or design; Oginga to Raila, Kenyatta to Uhuru, Moses to Musalia and so forth.
Some would advocate that we ignore our various ethnicities and forge a new country based on patriotism, but where do we get this patriotism? its is not some national switch to be turned on. We did not have the favor of a Nyerere whose vision foresaw this exact scenario, so now ethnicity is at the very heart of our politics, our military, our churches and even our schools. What can we do?
I believe the only solution is to create a larger state than Kenya. I believe the formation of the East African Federation will be the only major event capable of extinguishing the hard held stereotypes that people maintain over other ethnicities. If Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda form a union then no single community will have the numbers to support a tribal candidate. Indeed due to the novelty of the system the east African President and according officials are very likely to win a majority.
Your thoughts?
