Be warned, goons terror will surely beget Haiti-type chaos

Hopefully, Kenya will survive the rising culture of political goons. Lessons from other parts of Africa, and elsewhere, paint grim pictures. What begins like a temporary strategy to manage adversaries soon gains a life of its own. It morphs into WB Yeats’ falcon that cannot listen to the falconer. 

Kenyan police have recently returned home after 18 months of attempting to contain goons in Haiti. The government says nothing about how Haiti’s dreaded Tonton Macoute birthed scores of other gangs. 

In 1959, Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier founded the Macoute. He used these gangsters to maintain power. The Tonton behaved much the same as Kenya’s emerging goons. The kind of characters who will suddenly swoop on a senator in a restaurant. They beat him senseless and buoyantly swagger away with impunity. 

Moments after, keyboard goons are online. They berate the injured senator. They merchandise outrageous theories. They literally add insult to injury. 

The next day, a Member of Parliament is heard somewhere in Migori. He warns Opposition politicians not to set foot in Kisumu. But if they do, they should be beaten up, he says. Elsewhere, and everywhere else, goons violently disrupt civic gatherings; be they church services in Nairobi, or political rallies in Kikuyu. 

That is how a country begins the downward slide into anarchy. Does the current regime risk leaving behind anarchy as its legacy? The Tonton Macoute were characterised as “national security volunteers” in the reigns of Francois Duvalier (Papa Doc) and his son Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc). They were the “nice guys” supporting the government from “diversionary disgruntled social elements.”

Are we witnessing the same in Kenya today? That there are hoodlums, purporting to “protect” the government against Opposition rallies and demonstrations. They arrive armed with truncheons and sundry crude weapons. They light bonfires, clobber state detractors, and cause turmoil everywhere. That nothing happens to them. Just how can gangsters “protect” the government? 

Eventually, Baby Doc leaves the scene, as all rulers must finally leave. But his Macoute doesn’t go. They become hardcore, an institution in their own right. Even when he was still around, he had lost control of them. The police could not do anything about them, first because the “orders from above” were that they shouldn’t do anything. But, subsequently, even when the orders now want the police to bring the militias under control, the police cannot contain them.

Is this going to be William Ruto’s legacy for Kenya? It is the legacy of a failed state. Max Weber, a celebrated eclectic German scholar (1864-1920), defined state failure as a sovereign state’s loss of the ability to maintain authority. The most critical mark is the state's inability to deploy legitimate force.  For it then gives way to other losses. There is a loss of control over territorial borders. Next is the loss of recognition of state authority in all places where state control is lost. 

This absence of recognition is not cosmetic. When the state is not in control, it cannot provide very basic services. Education collapses as the youth join militias. Healthcare collapses. Legitimate business gives way to smuggling and assorted contraband trade. Electric power supply collapses. Water and sewerage services to. Banking collapses. Fuel shortages come in. Public transport and communication collapse.

The country is at war with itself. Only the sleekest survive because they control a militia group. It is the case in the Central African Republic, in Cameroon, and in Northern Nigeria. In Cameroon, Ambazonia militias have been at work since 2017. They are countered by the Anti-Gang Movement, which was initially formed, ostensibly, to counter Boko Haram. But there are ethnic militias everywhere in Cameroon, “helping” the police to maintain order. 

President William Ruto must hold a quiet conversation with himself. What is this proliferation of goons during his regime? Why do pro-state politicians celebrate their rampage? Is the Ruto state surrendering Kenya’s sovereignty to militias? Is this what President Ruto would like to be remembered for? The President under whose regime Kenya was taken over by organized highwaymen and cocktails of state-friendly gangsters?