Last week was dominated by supporting and opposing views on the handshake between President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. But the detail in the agreement has already been forgotten, and we are now back to 'development tours', with Nairobi as theatre for populist promises to the people. One day, we will get to ask two important questions. First, to confirm that these development promises by Ruto are planned and budgeted for, and not just hot air. Second, the expected value or return on these promises justifies the massive expense incurred in running around the country to make the pledges. However, we do not know if the handshake would have happened if Raila landed the African Union Commission chair job.
We may not know if the UDA-ODM handshake deal was to recompense for the won, then lost, Azimio post-election parliamentary majority that might have shot down Kenya Kwanza agenda.
But we know that the handshake gives Kenya Kwanza administration 'clear air' to do what it wants till 2027 General Election.
Let's take a brief walk on the wild side and imagine serious intent to implement the 10-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the handshake. Not quite the formal implementation matrix we used to track Agenda 4 on long-term issues after 2007/8, but a speculative implementation view of what a working MoU might consider, beyond 2027 electoral politics. The first item in the MoU is its most controversial - full implementation of the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) report which was tabled and adopted (as a report) by parliament before being subjected to detailed scrutiny by the respective justice and legal committees of both houses (National Assembly and Senate). This is still a work in progress, but one suspects that we have a situation similar to the 2028-2020 Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), where we ended up throwing out decent policy, institutional and administrative proposals. Arguably, the other nine points indicate work that should be happening. Item six on assembly and protesters' rights (plus victim compensation) protects the sovereignty of the people and promotes the rule of law and constitutionalism as covered by item 10. Item two on inclusivity in all spheres of public life basically commits to equitable budget allocations across the country and equal opportunities in public jobs. On budget allocations, we know that equitable allocations already happen at the county level . What about equity in resource allocations at the national level of our devolved system of government, that is, the distribution/spread of national government spending across Kenya?
