The big harambee: How a nation financing one man's quest for power

Politics has always had an intimate relationship with wealth. From the courts of medieval Europe to oligarchies of modern states, power and money tend to travel together, reinforcing one another in a mutually sustaining cycle.

But democratic societies attempt to regulate this relationship through institutions, transparency, and accountability. Without these restraints, political authority easily mutates into a private enterprise, where the state becomes less a public trust and more a vehicle for personal accumulation. 

History teaches us that the most dangerous moment for any republic is when political power becomes indistinguishable from private wealth. When that happens, government ceases to serve the common good. It begins instead to operate as an extraction machine, drawing resources from citizens and redirecting them upward to sustain the ambitions of those who control the state.  

Kenya today increasingly appears to be approaching that dangerous threshold. The 2022 presidential election was, by any measure, one of the most fiercely contested. It was also one of the most expensive. Campaign helicopters crisscrossed the country, rallies multiplied across counties, and the scale of logistical mobilisation suggested a campaign that was willing to spend whatever it took to secure victory.

There were even whispers in political circles that the campaign had stretched its financial limits to the brink, that, without some timely external intervention late in the race, certain campaign operations might have stalled just days before the election. Whether those rumours were exaggerated or not, what is undeniable is that the campaign represented a political gamble of extraordinary proportions. It was, in effect, a political wager in which the stakes were nothing less than the Kenyan state itself. 

Three years later, many Kenyans are beginning to ask an uncomfortable question: who ultimately pays for such wagers? Citizens are facing an unprecedented wave of taxation. From housing levies to fuel taxes, from digital service charges to new regulatory fees, the cost of living continues to climb. Businesses are struggling, young people are unemployed, and households are tightening their belts in an increasingly unforgiving economy. 

Yet at the same time, a different story appears to be unfolding at the upper reaches of power. There is growing public perception that vast sectors of Kenya’s strategic economy are becoming intertwined with political interests.

Questions have been raised, fairly or unfairly, about the proximity of political authority to commercial stakes in critical national platforms and institutions: digital government systems, healthcare financing structures, major media houses, strategic infrastructure, and key state corporations.

Whether through direct ownership, proxy arrangements, or privileged access, many citizens now believe that the architecture of the Kenyan state is slowly being reorganized around private interests. 

The symbolism is powerful and troubling. When citizens see government platforms becoming revenue-generating pipelines, when they watch public institutions morph into commercial hubs, and when they hear persistent allegations of politically connected interests orbiting around these entities, the conclusion they draw is simple: the state is no longer neutral.

It has been captured. In such an environment, taxation begins to feel less like a civic duty and more like compulsory participation in someone else’s accumulation project.

Every new levy, every new charge, every new deduction from the struggling Kenyan taxpayer begins to look less like national development and more like what Kenyans might call the largest mchango in history. 

But this is not the voluntary mchango of our villages and communities, the kind where neighbors contribute willingly to help a family in need. This one is compulsory, institutionalised, and enforced by law. The ordinary Kenyan wakes up early, goes to work, pays taxes, buys fuel at inflated prices, and pays digital transaction charges. Meanwhile, the state grows richer, but the citizen grows poorer. Infrastructure stagnates. Public services deteriorate. Yet the political elite appears increasingly prosperous. 

The moral problem here is not simply inequality. Inequality exists in every society. The deeper problem is legitimacy. A democratic government derives its moral authority from the belief that it governs on behalf of all citizens.

But when public power begins to resemble a private investment strategy, that legitimacy begins to erode. Citizens lose faith in institutions. They begin to believe that the rules are written for the benefit of a small circle around power. And when legitimacy collapses, even strong states begin to wobble. 

Kenya’s founders understood this danger well. The architects of our constitutional order attempted to design safeguards, public oversight, institutional independence, procurement rules, parliamentary scrutiny, and media freedom, precisely to prevent the concentration of economic and political power in the same hands.

But institutions are only as strong as the political culture that sustains them. If citizens remain silent while public power is converted into private advantage, then the gradual privatisation of the state becomes normalised.

The extraordinary becomes routine. The unacceptable becomes ordinary. And eventually, a republic quietly transforms into something else entirely. 

Kenya must confront this moment honestly. The issue is not about personalities or political rivalries. It is about the integrity of the Kenyan state. No democracy can survive if its citizens come to believe that the economy exists primarily to finance the ambitions of those who govern. A nation cannot be run like a campaign war chest that must be replenished after a costly election.  

Kenya deserves leadership that treats the state as a public trust, not as the final prize of political gambling. The resources of this country belong to its people, not to any individual, no matter how powerful. Otherwise, future historians may look back on this period and conclude that the greatest harambee in Kenya’s history was not the community fundraisers that built schools and hospitals. It was the silent national collection that financed the rise of a single man’s power.