Kenyan politics presents a very interesting picture of the comical game citizens are treated to. Whether you look at it from the normative, cultural or critical tradition, the political players will always think about their interest in the distribution and allocation of resources, but play with the mind of the masses.

Well, before they get to political positions where they exercise the power to distribute and allocate resources, they have to win the votes and that becomes the field of play where whoever frames their agenda as that of Wanjiku carries the day. This has made the mobilisation of votes presented by the political class as a mobilisation for the societal public good.

Today, the naïve electorate is presented with yet another song of uniting Kenyans, at a time when what the country needs is the actualisation of the promises made just about 24 months ago by the same folks in full campaign mode now.

You see, we keep hearing the political class make promises before elections and then after elections, they become big on uniting Kenyans rather than delivering on promises that propelled them to power. We saw this with the handshake and BBI and today, those mtegos the Deputy President, Riggy G, planted everywhere around State House have been discarded for unity. Uniting Kenyans is the rallying call.

Even in my home county of Migori, where President William Ruto faced massive rejection in the last elections, the ground seems to be singing President Ruto as Mudavadi’s second earthquake of seeing Baba become the AUC chair appears to be shaking the political scene. Well, unity is good and what we need to ask ourselves is unity for whom and towards what and whose interest?

Past experiences have shown us that such rallying calls for unity are almost always ploys to galvanise big regional and ethnic-based voting blocs in the run-up to elections. Look, why would a regime that legitimately won the people’s vote to lead for a period of five years preoccupy itself with uniting a people that are not divided? Isn’t fair distribution and allocation of resources and fidelity to the delivery of the promises they made to the people a much better pathway to uniting the people of Kenya?

We are a united people, and you only need to see how we rally around our athletes, sportsmen and our nation when attacked by other nations to see unity. We only get this reminder of unity from the political class because their currency is dependent on our illusion of disunity and their narrative of our people are marginalised, which makes it easy for them to rally us in the name of fighting for our share of the national cake.

It is a tradition that we need to reject as a people and call out leaders who bandy the mirage that is political unity to the naive populace. There is no better way to unite Kenyans than to guarantee kids in each and every village in different parts of this country equal, non-zero opportunities to realise their dreams regardless of who their elected leaders are. There is no better way to unite Kenyans than to have an elected leadership that will equitably allocate and distribute resources for the greater good of the people regardless of who they voted for or where they hail from.

You see, my native Migori not only rejected this regime massively in the last elections but also outdid all the other counties in massive demonstration against it both in 2023 and 2024. But my good home county has outdone itself once again in giving the President the warmest welcome of any county yet in what my MP says could be the beginning of a new political alliance.

Well, the politics of uniting every Kenyan was at centre stage and clearly the distribution of the national cake is being used for political expediency. Compounding the problem is that sentiments of unity emerged as not only exclusionary but also self-interest in approach and a mirage in reality.

Kenya is indeed one interesting country and all you need to do is disunite people for political expediency and then rally the same people towards the mirage that is Wakenya Wote Pamoja as a political strategy to win elections.

— The writer is a PhD student in Political Communication