African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on October 20, 2005
African Affairs 2006 105(418):51-75; doi:10.1093/afraf/adi067
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
‘Power to Uhuru’: Youth Identity and Generational Politics in Kenya’s 2002 Elections
Dr. Peter Mwangi Kagwanja is the Director, International Crisis Group (Southern Africa) and Research Associate, Center for International Political Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Faced with the challenge of a new, multi-ethnic political coalition, President Daniel arap Moi shifted the axis of the 2002 electoral contest from ethnicity to the politics of generational conflict. The strategy backfired, ripping his party wide open and resulting in its humiliating defeat in the December 2002 general elections. Nevertheless, the discourse of a generational change of guard as a blueprint for a more accountable system of governance won the support of some youth movements like Mungiki. This article examines how the movement’s leadership exploited the generational discourse in an effort to capture power. Examining the manipulation of generational and ethnic identities in patrimonial politics, the article argues that the instrumentalization of ethnicity in African politics has its corollary in the concomitant instrumentalization of other identities — race, class, gender, clan, age and religion.
1. Anders Närma, ‘Elections in Kenya’, Review of African Political Economy 30, 96 (2003), pp. 343–50; see also Lionel Cliffe, ‘Kenya post-election prospects’, Review of African Political Economy 30, 96 (2003), pp. 341–3.
2. See ‘Children in the spotlight: a place in the African security debate’, editorial, African Security Review 11, 3 (2002), p. 1.
3. Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, ‘Warlord politics and the "Third Wave": youth vigilantism and public security in multiparty Kenya’, paper presented at the conference on Political Economy of Kenya: Past and Present, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, 27–28 May 2004.
4. As the 2002 elections drew nearer, the spectre of youth rebellion and violence loomed so large that donor funding, policy research priorities and advocacy by civil society organizations in Kenya shifted to questions of youth violence and security. The Nairobi office of the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung organized youths to generate ‘a code of conduct for youths participating in politics’ [Challenge of Leadership: A code of conduct for youths participating in politics (Nairobi, 2000)]. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) redirected its funding to monitoring political violence and funded a new consortium of six national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Central Depository Unit, devoted to monitoring, documenting and publicizing issues of political violence.
5. Uhuru is a Kiswahili word for freedom or independence. It is also the name that Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, gave to his son who was born on the eve of Kenya’s independence. The presidential candidacy of Uhuru Kenyatta signified, to many youths, the quest for a transfer of power to the younger (Uhuru) generation.
6. On Mungiki, see notes 12, 13 and 18.
7. Paul Richards, ‘Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: a crisis of youth?’, in O. W. Furley (ed.), Conflict in Africa (I.B. Tauris, London, 1995), pp. 134–70.
8. See, for example, Kumi Naidoo, ‘The politics of youth resistance in the 1980s: the dilemmas of a differentiated Durban’, Journal of Southern African Studies 18, 1 (1992), pp. 143–65; Johannes Harnischfeger, ‘The Bakassi boys: fighting crime in Nigeria’, Journal of Modern African Studies 41, 1 (2003), pp. 23–49; Insa Nolte, ‘Identity and violence: the politics of youth in Ijebu-Remo, Nigeria’, Journal of Modern African Studies 42, 1 (2004), pp. 61–89.
9. Richards, ‘Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone’.
10. Donal B. Cruise O’Brien, ‘A lost generation: youth identity and state decay in West Africa’, in Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger (eds), Post-Colonial Identities in Africa (Zed Books, London, 1996), p. 55.
11. Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the religious dimension of an African civil war (C. Hurst & Co., London, 1999); also his unpublished paper, ‘Young soldiers and the significance of initiation: some notes from Liberia’, presented at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, April 2003.
12. Grace Nyatugah Wamue, ‘Revisiting our indigenous shrines through Mungiki’, African Affairs 100, 400 (2001), pp. 453–67.
13. David M. Anderson, ‘Vigilantes, violence and the politics of public order in Kenya’, African Affairs 101, 405 (2002), pp. 531–55.
14. Cf. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001). For a summary of the ‘invention debate’, see Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as political instrument (James Currey, Oxford, 1999), pp. 49–62.
15. John Lonsdale, ‘The moral economy of Mau Mau: wealth, poverty and civic virtue in Kikuyu political thought’, in John Lonsdale and Bruce Berman, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa. Book Two, Violence and Ethnicity (James Currey, Oxford, 1992), pp. 315–468.
17. Dickson Eyoh, ‘Community, citizenship and the politics of post-colonial Africa’, in Ezekiel Kalipeni and Paul Zeleza (eds), Sacred Spaces and Public Quarrels (Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, and Asmara, 1999), p. 273.
18. Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, ‘Facing Mount Kenya or facing Mecca? The Mungiki, ethnic violence and the politics of the Moi succession in Kenya, 1987–2002’, African Affairs 102, 406 (2003), pp. 25–49.
19. John Lonsdale, ‘Political accountability in African history’, in Patrick Chabal (ed.), Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the limits of power (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986), p. 130.
20. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, ‘State and society in Kenya: the disintegration of the nationalist coalitions and the rise of presidential authoritarianism, 1963–78’, African Affairs 88, 351 (1989), pp. 229–51.
21. In the post-Moi era, the NARC government has revitalized the National Youth Service (NYS) as part of its response to youth delinquency and vigilantism.
22. Cherry Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya, 1963–1968 (East African Publishing House, Nairobi, Kenya, 1970), pp. 73–124.
23. KPU was banned by a presidential fiat in 1969, and its leaders detained; see David Throup and Charles Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya: The Kenyatta and the Moi states and the triumph of the system (James Currey, Oxford, 1998).
24. Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Béatrice Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (James Currey, Oxford, 1999).
25. Kagwanja, ‘Facing Mount Kenya’.
26. Crawford Young, ‘The Third wave of democratization in Africa: ambiguities and contradiction’, in Richard Joseph (ed.), State, Conflict and Democracy in Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 1999), pp. 15–38.
27. David Throup ‘ "Render unto Caesar things that are Caesar’s": Church-state conflict in Kenya, 1978–90’, in Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle (eds), Religion and Politics in East Africa (James Currey, London, 1995), pp. 143–76; Jennifer Widner, The Rise of a Party State in Kenya (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1992); Joel Barkan, ‘Kenya: lessons from a flawed election’, Journal of Democracy 4, 3 (1993), pp. 85–99.
28. Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics, pp. 14–16.
29. Makumi Mwagiru, Olang Sana and Keneth P. Njau, Facts About Majeshi Ya Wazee (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation and Centre for Conflict Research, Nairobi, Kenya, 2002).
30. Human Rights Watch, Playing the Communal Card: Communal violence and human rights (Human Rights Watch, New York, NY, 1995).
31. Human Rights Watch, Divide and Rule: State-sponsored violence in Kenya (Human Rights Watch, New York, NY, November 1993).
32. See Peter Kagwanja, The Right to Return: The internally displaced persons and the culture of impunity in Kenya (Kenya Human Rights Commission, Nairobi, Kenya, 2001).
33. Wamue, ‘Indigenous shrines’.
34. Anderson, ‘Vigilantes, violence’.
35. Roger Southall, ‘Moi’s flawed mandate: the crisis continues in Kenya’, Review of African Political Economy 25, 75 (1998), pp. 101–11; Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics.
36. The three leaders vied for the presidential elections in December 1997 where Kibaki came second to Moi with 31% while Wamalwa and Ngilu garnered 8.3% and 7.7%, respectively, which, combined, outstripped Moi’s 40.1%.
37. See Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, ‘The clash of generations? Youth identity, ethnic violence and the politics of Moi succession, 1991–2002’, in Jon Abbink and Ineke van Kessel (eds), Vanguards or Vandals? Youth, politics and conflict in Africa (Brill, Leiden, , The Netherlands, 2004), pp. 81–109.
38. Daily Nation, 21 and 26 November 1992.
39. Center for Strategic and International Studies, ‘Preview of Kenya’s December 27 national elections’, CSIS Africa Notes 12 (2002); Catherine Bond, ‘Kenya’s Moi Faces Party Rebellion’ <http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/10/11/kenya.moi.alliance> Accessed on 11 October 2002.
41. In retrospect, Moi seems to have identified Uhuru Kenyatta as his anointed successor much earlier. In 1996, Moi created a new Thika district with Uhuru as KANU chairman, in spite of fierce resistance by KANU old timers like Joseph Kamotho. Although Uhuru failed to win the Gatundu parliamentary seat on a KANU ticket in 1997, he was appointment chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, quickly followed in October 2001 by a double appointment as a nominated Member of Parliament and Minister for Local Government.
44. E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, ‘Hegemonic enterprises and instrumentalities of survival: ethnicity and democracy in Kenya’, African Studies 61 (2003), p. 37. A Kikuyu-Luo political détente evokes memories of the KANU victory over KADU in the 1963 elections. While keeping the Luo at bay was the challenge that confronted the Kenyatta state, guarding against a Kikuyu-Luo political alliance was the preoccupation of the Moi state.
45. Charles Gore and David Pratten, ‘The politics of plunder: the rhetorics of order and disorder in southern Nigeria’, African Affairs 102, 407 (2003), pp. 211–40.
46. Deborah Durham, ‘Youth and the social imagination in Africa’, Anthropological Quarterly 73, 3 (2000), pp. 113–20; see also her ‘Just playing: choirs, bureaucracy, and the work of youth in Botswana’, in F. De Boeck and A. Honwana (eds), Children and Youth as Emerging Categories in Postcolonial Africa (James Currey, Oxford, 2005), pp. 150–71.
47. Kagwanja, ‘Facing Mount Kenya’.
48. This part is largely based on interviews with scores of Mungiki members between November 2001 and August, 2002 under the aegis of the Kenya Human Rights Commission’s USAID-funded project on ‘Monitoring Election Violence in Kenya’, which I designed and implemented.
49. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya (Secker and Warburg, London, 1938).
50. Ngugi wa Thiongo, The River Between (Heinemann Educational Books, Oxford, 1965).
51. For an incisive analysis of the generational aspects of the Mau Mau, see Lonsdale, ‘Moral economy’.
52. Waruhiu Itote, Mau Mau General (East African Publishing House, Nairobi, Kenya, 1967), p. 55. The Kikuyu word thingira is the elder’s hut, but the author translates it as ‘the cottage of our ancestors’, a conscious effort to invoke the spirit of the iregi ancestors.
53. Lonsdale, ‘Moral economy’, p. 450.
54. Interview, Gacheke Gachihi, August, 2002.
55. Edmondo Cavicchi, Problems of Change in Kikuyu Tribal Society (Kegan Paul, London, 1977), see ‘Appendix I: The handing over of ruling powers by the Mwangi generation to the Irungu (Maina Kanyi) generation in 1932’, pp. 207–8.
56. Anderson, ‘Vigilantes, violence’.
57. Ngugi, The River Between, p. 21.
58. The concept of the hills is central to Kikuyu thought concerning their ancestral homeland of Kenya’s Central Province. Uhuru hailed from ‘the hills’ as opposed to the Kikuyu main diaspora in the Rift Valley.
59. ‘Mungiki sect to support KANU, Saitoti and Uhuru in poll’, The East African Standard, 4 March 2002.
60. Njuguna Waweru and Philip Mwakio, ‘Uhuru now defends Mungiki adherents’, The East African Standard, 26 August 2002.
61. ‘Is Mungiki now legitimate?’, Daily Nation, 21 August 2002.
62. Nancy Khisa, ‘A-G orders arrest of Mungiki followers’, East African Standard, 22 August 2002.
63. ‘Uhuru denounces Mungiki, denies links with sect’s members’, Daily Nation, 23 August 2002; ‘Uhuru shies away from hostile crowds as Mungiki refuses to be disowned’, Daily Nation, 14 October 2002.
64. Waweru and Mwakio, ‘Uhuru now defends Mungiki adherents’.
65. Amos Kareithi, ‘Ndichu now beats retreat on Mungiki’, The East African Standard, 26 August 2002.
66. ‘Banned sect marches for Moi’, BBC News, 20 August 2002.
67. ‘Uproar as MPs claim State protecting Mungiki’, Daily Nation, 18 October, 2002.
68. ‘Kenya: presidential candidate Kenyatta denies links with Mungiki Sect’, East African Standard, 11 November 2002.
69. ‘23 Mungiki sect adherents nabbed by police’, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, 22 October 2002; City police nab armed sect members’, KBC, 15 October 2002.
70. Njenga had won the nomination by garnering 19,509 against his opponent, Mr. Muruthi, who got 1,331 votes: ‘KANU now bars Mungiki aspirant’, The East African Standard, 28 November 2002.
71. Author’s interviews with Mungiki youths in Nairobi, 10 October 2004.
72. Anderson, ‘Vigilantes, violence’.
73. ‘Mungiki’s revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
74. Ngugi, The River Between, p. 21; also author’s interview with Mungiki members, Nairobi, 4 May 2004.
75. Mungiki was involved in 60% of all incidents of political violence and hooliganism. See Central Depository Unit, Monitoring Election Violence: Final report of the 2002 general election (CDU, Nairobi, 2003), p. 23.
76. Mwai Kibaki scored a landslide victory with 3.65 million or 61% of the presidential vote, whereas his party secured 125 or 60% of 210 seats in the Kenyan parliament. Uhuru Kenyatta gained 1.83 million votes or 31% of nearly 6 million registered votes.
77. Cynics argued that the NARC victory was no more than a change of guard in the palace with little impact on the future, because key players in the party were weaned on the politics of the Moi (and to an extent the Kenyatta) state.
78. The percentage of Mungiki members who voted for Uhuru Kenyatta and KANU is difficult to establish. But it is clear that Uhuru and KANU performed extremely well in Central, Rift Valley and Nairobi where Mungiki members were concentrated. Uhuru won over 30% of the presidential votes in Central Province, 53% in the Rift Valley, and 21% in Nairobi, whereas KANU won six seats in Central, almost all in the Mungiki stronghold of Kiambu and 30 in the Rift Valley. Although there were other factors that may have contributed to this performance, the Mungiki youth factor is a major one.
79. ‘Five killed in Mungiki mayhem’, East African Standard, 7 February 2003.
80. ‘Profile: Kenya’s secretive Mungiki sect’, BBC, 11 February 2003.
81. Author’s interview with a high-ranking civil society leader close to the NARC government, 15 January 2003; People Daily, 3 January 2003.
82. ‘Residents punished for being NARC supporters’, Daily Nation, 7 January 2003.
83. James Kutai, ‘Mungiki attack deftly planned’, Kenya Times, 9 January 2003; Watoro Kamau, ‘Police parade three Mungiki suspects’, Daily Nation, 9 January 2003. See also ‘ "Mungiki" murder trial resumes’, Daily Nation, 9 February 2004; ‘Mungiki given murder weapons by former MP’, Daily Nation, 15 October 2004.
84. See Joseph Karimi, ‘Army vehicles "given to Mungiki" had powerful radios’, The East African, 3 February 2003.
85. Faith Muiruri, ‘Government calls for truce with Mungiki’, Kenya Times, 13 January 2003.
86. ‘957 Mungiki members charged as state amnesty ends’, Daily Nation, 13 February 2003.
87. Interview with government official, Nairobi, December 2003.
88. Interview, Nairobi, December 2003.
89. ‘Mungiki accused over shooting’, Daily Nation, 30 April 2003.
90. Kamjesh is a generic name for youths who hang around matatu and bus terminals and collect money to fill it with passengers. ‘Matatu: Michuki is right but . . . ’, East African Standard, 4 February 2004; Darren Taylor, ‘Wheels come off matatu’, News24.com, 2 February 2004.
91. Matt Stevens, ‘Breaking down the matatu: personal reflections on what Kenya’s cars reveal about its corruption’, Harvard Political Review, 7 December 2003. Online edition http://www.hpronline.org/media/paper450/news/2002/04/01/World/Breaking.Down.The.Matatu-220165.shtml
92. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
93. Evelyn Kwamboka, ‘How Mungiki trains killers’, The East African Standard, 8 March 2004.
94. Eliud Miring’uh, ‘Hunt for Mungiki followers’, The East African Standard, 9 March 2004.
95. Part of the reason for payment is that after graduation they would be in control of major resources and were entitled to a regular income: Ibid.
96. Wamue, ‘Indigenous shrines’.
97. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
101. Evelyn Kwamboka, ‘How Mungiki trains killers’, The East African Standard, 8 March 2004.
102. Interview with a Mungiki member, July 2004.
103. Ibid., Nairobi, 8 October 2004.
104. Miring’uh, ‘Hunt for Mungiki followers’.
105. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
107. Evelyn Kwamboka, ‘How Mungiki trains killers’, The East African Standard, 8 March 2004.
109. ‘War on Mungiki sect "still on" ’, Daily Nation, 21 June 2004.
110. Kwamboka, ‘How Mungiki trains killers’.
111. ‘Mungiki boss out on a peace bond’, Daily Nation, 18 April 2003.
112. Lucas Barasa and Paul Udoto, ‘Six "Mungiki" defectors arrested’, Daily Nation, 9 February 2004.
113. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
114. Cyrus Kinyungu, ‘Mungiki sect members hack girl, 13, to death’, Daily Nation, 16 June 2004.
115. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
116. ‘War on Mungiki sect "still on" ’, Daily Nation, 21 June 2004.
117. Barasa and Udoto, ‘Six "Mungiki" defectors’.
118. Kinyungu, ‘Mungiki sect members hack girl’.
119. Barasa and Udoto, ‘Six "Mungiki" defectors’.
123. ‘ "‘Mungiki" murder trial resumes’, Daily Nation, 9 February 2004.
124. ‘ "Mungiki’s" revenge’, Daily Nation, 5 April 2004.
125. ‘Mungiki boss on murder charge’, The East African Standard, 9 April 2004.
126. ‘Police arrest Mungiki sect leaders’, The East African Standard, 16 April 2004.
127. ‘War on Mungiki sect "still on" ’, Daily Nation, 21 June 2004.
128. ‘Mungiki sect suspects get life terms for murder’, Daily Nation, 15 June 2004.
129. Simon Siele, ‘Now Mungiki calls for talks with House team’, Daily Nation, 22 June 2004.
131. ‘Mungiki sect suspects get life terms for murder’, Daily Nation, 15 June 2004.
132. Crawford Young, ‘The end of the post-colonial state in Africa? Reflections on changing African political dynamics’, African Affairs 103, 410 (2004), pp. 23–49.