This coming Saturday, our Constitution turns one!

Its first year has been nothing if not fitful. Citizens’ expectations of it have remained high, with its promise of freedom being tested on an almost weekly basis. Everyone has suddenly learnt to demonstrate — and to challenge the still-too-common consequences of doing so — being arrested by the police. Apart from taking to the streets with unprecedented frequency, Kenyans have also learnt to go to court over matters both big and small.

Like all newborns, our Constitution has also had teething problems. They seem, in retrospect, to centre on two of Kenya’s most pernicious problems — the desire to evade accountability and the desire to retain and exercise power as power has always been known. In retrospect too, this should not have been unexpected.

Thus, the state’s multitude of both bureaucratic and political functionaries seem not to have grasped that the new Constitution — deliberately, albeit inefficiently — has dramatically, vastly expanded the little state fiefdoms available. There are so many more ways to sit in public office — elected or appointed. And the already vast state machinery required to support those public offices has also, necessarily, expanded.

The thinking was that this would lessen the viciousness of the scramble for office. But maybe that thinking, going by the never-ending stream of drama since last August, was wrong? Or maybe that thinking has just not yet trickled down into everybody’s consciousness?

Think here about the circus of blame that we have all been subjected to, with ever more shrillness as the first anniversary approaches. The Constitutional Implementation Commission, the various line ministries, the Attorney General’s Office, the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee of parliament and parliament itself. It’s a mess — nobody’s clear who’s meant to be generating the Bills required in the first instance. Everyone wants a piece of the action.

And everyone wants a piece of the action when it comes to approving the draft legislation as well. Seriously, it’s no wonder that deadlines are looming large and various Bills are still floating around somewhere in that cesspool of interested parties.

A self-interested conservatism and desire to retain control are evident within the Treasury and across all relevant Constitutional Commissions, line ministries, parastatals — and too, within parliament itself. The Gender Commission doesn’t want to merge with the Human Rights Commission. Immigration seems to be having recurring nightmares about anyone of Somali origin, Kenyan or not. Internal security doesn’t want the Provincial Administration to go — even with its latest proof of ineptitude with respect to a task as manifestly simple as distributing relief food. The police want to vet themselves. Parliament doesn’t want to pay tax — and, if it’s forced to, it’ll compensate by raising its overall wage bill.

In short, it’s a disaster. And it’s likely to be even more disastrous as the Constitution approaches the infamous Terrible Twos. Because the sad truth is that self-interest cannot be divorced from constitutional implementation. Everything’s political and everyone political is hell-bent on being affected as little as possible. Brace yourself!

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is the outgoing executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission