As one leader after another took the lectern to sing Hosanna to Kirubi, the truth about who actually runs – nay, rules – Kenya was revealed.
Raising their voices to outdo each other about Kirubi’s exploits, the politicians let us see the godforsaken entrails.
Politicians don’t usually tell the truth at funerals. But sometimes – on rare occasions – they become giddy and do so by accident. That’s what happened at the funeral last week of the late business oligarch Chris Kirubi. The country’s most senior political leaders inadvertently let it all hang out. It was a stunning display of political obsequiousness only last seen at the burial of the late dictator Daniel arap Moi. Except Kirubi wasn’t a politician, and never held any elective public office. However, he had amassed a lot of moolah. At one point, Forbes ranked Kirubi only second to the Kenyattas in wealth in Kenya. They say money talks, and the other stuff walks. That’s raw power.
It’s not Kirubi’s wealth that concerns me. Although that’s an issue. Kenya has chosen the path of bare-knuckle capitalism where the primitive accumulation of wealth – even by crook – is admired and celebrated. In Kenya, you are morally inferior if you are impoverished. Rather, I am concerned about how Kirubi acquired and used his vast riches. We know he was born and grew up dirt poor. That’s why he’s a classic study of how one can hitch themselves to the state and the ruling elite to become an oligarch. Eventually, Mr Kirubi became the state, or the deep state, if you wish. Politicians, including presidents, genuflected to him. His moneyed tentacles reached far and wide in East Africa.
