By TEE NGUGI

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The stoning of Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga’s helicopter by rowdy youth in Uasin Gishu County is yet another indication of a worrisome trend. A while ago, stone-throwing youth disrupted Deputy President — another presidential candidate — William Ruto’s campaign party.

In the by-election in Matungu, Kakamega County in western Kenya, last year, we saw all manner of electoral malpractices — bribery, violence, threats and intimidation. The chaos in Matungu was orchestrated by politicians. The ringleaders directed the mayhem in front of police officers and TV crews.

It’s an indication of the capture of the criminal justice system by political thuggery that some of the politicians choreographing the chaos were out on bond for previous electoral or other crimes. None had their bonds cancelled. None were prosecuted for the mayhem in Matungu.

In 2020 at Kenol, Murang’a County in central Kenya, two youth were killed when violence erupted at a church function involving the Deputy President. Evidence indicated that the incitement and violence was paid for by rival politicians.

In 2019, a man was killed when a politician stormed a rival’s political gathering. The case is still ongoing, two years after the crime was committed.

These are only a few of the most recent cases of intolerance and incitement. They are worrying because previous ones led to deaths. The most infamous was the burning of people hiding in a church in Eldoret in 2008. There were other large-scale killings in 1992 and 1997 instigated by politicians.

Underdevelopment of Kenya’s, and by extension Africa’s, political and civic culture is caused by selective and knee-jerk application of laws.

Were an ordinary fellow to cause the death of someone, he would be guaranteed — unless he was well-connected — to rot in a maximum security prison. Chicken thieves and phone snatchers proliferate our prisons, while political bigwigs who disrupt lawful electoral processes roam free with a ‘licence to incite and kill’. They are the James Bonds of real life, climbing out of multimillion-shilling fuel guzzlers, swaggering on to campaign podiums, and announcing to the awestruck impoverished crowd: “I’m honourable professor doctor bishop so-and-so, PhD”.

By the way, who supervises these PhDs? What was the subject matter of their dissertation? It’s amazing that without anyone ever investigating how these PhDs were earned, citizens and journalists obsequiously trip over their tongues trying to make sure they do not miss any of the multiple honorifics.

Knee-jerk response to crises has become a principle of governance. It operates this way: Look the other way until there is a public outcry. Then have one week of animated decrees and crackdowns before reverting to default mode. When it comes to electoral laws, our bloody history warns that we either apply them non-selectively and consistently or we perish. Plain and simple.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator