The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) was conceived and welcomed as a bipartisan framework that could provide a panacea for most of the ills that plague Kenya’s political life.
It was supposed to settle outstanding issues of exclusivity, negative ethnicity, devolution hiccups, electoral violence, corruption and historical injustices, ushering in an era of unity, peace and progress for the country.
The BBI was lauded as a tool for national healing and reconciliation. The communique by President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga during the ‘Handshake’ on March 9, 2018 was appropriately titled “Building Bridges to a New Kenya”.
Politicians, however, are experts at creating ghosts and nightmares. Even before the contents of the BBI report were made public, several groups were traversing the country opposing it. The Tangatanga team believed it was a duo-dynasty play to block Deputy President William Ruto from ascending to the presidency. The pro-Raila team criticised Dr Ruto for opposing it.
But when the report was finally presented at Bomas of Kenya in November 2019, it was something of an anti-climax. It had been pasteurised to accommodate views across the political divide.
The Ruto team could then not credibly fight it. After an initial hesitation about the process of either subjecting it to a popular vote through a referendum or parliamentary process, they changed their mind and said they would accept any method of implementing it.
This appeared to be the end of the story. However, the extension of time for the BBI task force to receive more views and fine-tune the proposals has generated a fresh wave of campaigns, rumours, innuendo, currents, cross-currents and counter-currents, opinions and speculation.
The BBI will lose its initial acceptance and appeal if it is seen as a Trojan horse to carry certain leaders to power. As I said at the BBI launch at Bomas, we should not make the Constitution with a particular individual in mind but to serve the best interests of all Kenyans.
We need to appreciate the realpolitik of the BBI. It was not a product of any moral, ethical or ideological considerations. It was a product of political realism and pragmatism on the part of Raila and Uhuru. The ‘Handshake’ was not a product of a Saul-to-Paul conversion of the two leaders; it was a product of battle fatigue.
As Musalia Mudavadi’s book Soaring Above the Storms of Passion says, the high-voltage electoral politics and boycotting of the repeat 2017 presidential election caused a lot of resentment in Raila’s camp, who threatened to set the country ablaze. After being sworn in as the “people’s president” on January 30, 2018, Raila ran out of options since, despite the radical rhetoric, he was not ready to launch an all-out armed struggle against Uhuru’s government.
Musalia is of the view that the ‘Handshake’ was a product of diplomatic pressure, denial of visas and unbearable financial pressure. The weekly street confrontations paralysed business in Nairobi and imposed heavy security costs and political uncertainties on Uhuru’s administration. The country was on the verge of another bloodbath.
Negotiation and reconciliation was the only logical political option available to the two leaders. The ‘Handshake’ was an act of realpolitik — a political necessity.
The only true reality in politics is power. Power must be captured and retained at all costs. The end justifies the means. And the means does not only refer to deception or force of arms; it could also refer to moral, psychological and idealistic means.
Politicians often play the conscience card in pursuit of power. In modern equations of power, physical force is no longer a fashionable option. Intellectual, philosophical and emotional resources have to be mobilised to cloak the power game. Whether the BBI is such a cloak, only time will tell.
