How our counties have become 47 fractures of devolution dream

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When Dennis Onsarigo, a proud son of Gusiiland and former Raila Odinga press secretary, recently sat in a radio studio, he mused, “I thought that we had crossed this tribal threshold.”

I thought so to be honest. I thought that with a new, progressive Constitution, with this digital highway we created as a country, our proximity to international markets, we had diluted tribalism. Now it is worse. I come from Kisii. Now you have to ask me from which clan?

He was not speaking in metaphors. He was describing a wound that devolution has deepened in Kisii and Nyamira counties: the descent from ethnic solidarity to clan warfare to family census. Is this the devolution Kenyans demanded in 2010?

Look beyond Gusiiland. In Vihiga, the conversation ahead of 2027 is already “it is time for a Maragoli governor.” In Kakamega’s Navakholo, clan elders openly tally which sub-tribe got which road or bursary. Meru politics is now Imenti versus Tigania versus Igembe, with candidates introduced by their sub-tribal flag.

Among the Kalenjin, once the most cohesive bloc in the old Rift Valley Province, Nandi families feud publicly, Kipsigis elders revive internal rivalries for Kericho governorship, and Elgeyo-Marakwet is literally carved into Keiyo versus Marakwet sub-counties, complete with clan clashes over land and jobs. The pattern is unmistakable. Where a single community dominates a county — and most of our 47 do — competition has collapsed inward. The old provincial arenas forced broader coalitions. The new county arenas reward the narrowest loyalty. Devolution did not invent clannism; it simply made the prize smaller and the battlefield microscopic. Now the cautionary questions multiply. What happens when even clans fracture into families? When does every MCA seat, every tender, every county executive post become a bloodline contest? When young people, watching their parents fight over crumbs, conclude that merit and ideas have no place in politics? We are already seeing it: 2027 is shaping up as a season of micro-alliances and grand coalitions born not of vision but of survival. No single party looks capable of governing alone. The public wage bill balloons. Service delivery lags. And the mwananchi, the citizen, Onsarigo kept asking about, feels further from power.

Fiscal reality adds urgency. Some 47 governors, 47 assemblies, thousands of executives and advisors — many counties generate less than 10 per cent of their budgets locally. We are paying for duplication while the national debt climbs and youth unemployment festers. If we continue this path, by 2032, the fractures may be too deep to mend. Tribalism will not disappear; it will simply mutate into endless sub-tribal civil wars within counties, poisoning national cohesion from the grassroots.

There is a better way. Kenya must collapse the 47 counties back into the eight former provinces — now restructured as larger, viable regional governments. Not a return to the old centralised provinces of Moi and Kibaki, but a rational consolidation that keeps devolution’s core promise: bringing services closer while restoring scale.

I envision a revived Nyanza Region, where Abagusii clans would have to negotiate together with Luo and Kuria leaders instead of fighting each other over Kisii County’s smaller cake. In the new Rift Valley Region, Nandi, Kipsigis and Keiyo-Marakwet leaders would once again bargain as Kalenjin stakeholders rather than county rivals. Western Region would force Maragoli, Bukusu and Tiriki to present a united Luhya front.

The bargaining table rises; the patronage points shrink. Fewer governors, fewer assemblies, dramatically lower overheads. Resources could flow to genuine regional priorities, such as trunk roads, specialised hospitals and technical universities, instead of being scattered across 47 mini-empires.

Historically, the old provinces were not perfect, yet they compelled leaders to deliver visibly for entire regions. Marginalised areas like the North and Coast gained national attention precisely because they operated as provincial blocs. Kenya stands at a fork. One road leads deeper into the 47 fractures — more clan lists, more family cartels, more coalitions stitched together by exhaustion rather than hope. The other road leads back to eight robust regions where identity still matters, but at a level that demands statesmanship instead of village arithmetic.