According to a survey by the Public Service Commission in 2015, Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luo, Luhya, Kamba and Kisii – occupy 82.6 per cent of
government jobs leaving the remaining 42 tribes to share the 17 per cent of
total public jobs.
Not surprisingly, this closely follows the tribes of the political heavyweights who have straddled this country since independence.
Mzee Kenyatta and Jaramogi took the lead in the sixties followed by Moi and his good friends Mudavadi, Mulu Mutisya, Oyugi and the Kanyingis and Nyachaes, and today we have Jubilee’s Dynamic Duo, a Kikuyu-Kalenjin partnership.
A breakdown of the most senior government and political positions in the different administrations will also support this conclusion. For this reason, the “we are being finished” cry by politicians holds some truth especially when talking about corruption in public service. However, the question is who’s to blame.
In my opinion, blame should land squarely on the tribal chieftains for having completely lost the game. They employed their clansmen under the cruel lie that that government is where money is made easily.
They told them that they did not require higher educational qualifications to take up high public offices. They told them that you only need to spend an hour in your office for three days every week and the rest of the week, your coat on your chair will do the work.
Naively, these clansmen took up the “free” jobs and they are now finding, to their disappointment and horror, that there are details like performance audits and educational requirements needed.
In our case, even the tribes of those facing serious corruption charges reflect the skewed tribal nepotism present in our civil service. So, it is true that these “big” tribes are suffering more than others, but also they have milked the system longer than the others.
They are being “targeted” simply because of having more of their sons and daughters in the civil service than any other. They are paying the price of tribalism, nepotism and clanism.