By Morris Wambua

Every nation tells itself stories. Stories to soothe, to unify, to distract. But some stories become something far more potent.

They become myths.

And in Kenya, political myth-making has not merely been an accessory to governance. It has been the architecture of power itself. For six decades, successive regimes have manufactured, sold, and rebranded myths to cover up failure, justify oppression, and pacify the citizenry.

These myths are not harmless folklore. They are strategic narratives, designed to anesthetize a population that, if fully awake, would overthrow the entire order before breakfast.

Let us take a sober, scalpel-sharp walk through the myth-making factory that is Kenyan political history. We begin in 1963, not with a drumroll of triumph, but with a question: What, exactly, did we get at independence?

The Myth of Independence: “We Won Freedom”

Independence was declared. Flags were waved. A white man stepped down, and a black man stepped in. But the system remained unchanged.

The land question; the very reason for the Mau Mau rebellion was swiftly defanged and deferred. Former colonial farms were redistributed. Yes. But largely to a new class of African elites. The real freedom fighters; those who lived in forests and detention camps, were sidelined, their sacrifices commodified for state symbolism, but denied any share of the national cake.

So no, we didn’t get freedom in 1963. We got a change of management. The British packed up, but left the manual. Jomo Kenyatta and his new African bourgeoisie read it cover to cover, and applied it with startling efficiency.

The Myth of Founding Fathers: “Kenyatta Was Baba Wa Taifa”

The mythologizing of Jomo Kenyatta is perhaps Kenya’s most enduring fiction.

“Father of the Nation,” we call him. But what kind of father jails dissenting children and starves others? Kenyatta's presidency was not a nurturing embrace. It was a consolidation of ethnic
capitalism, veiled authoritarianism, and state terror.

His government became a fortress of privilege for the chosen few, mostly from his backyard in Central Kenya, while the rest of the country was left to scrape together survival under a one-party regime.

Those who raised questions: Bildad Kaggia, J.M.Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, etc either disappeared or died mysteriously. The message was clear: Father knows best. And if you challenge him, you meet your political death, or worse, a literal one.

The Moi Myth: “Peace, Love, and Unity”

Daniel arap Moi was not just a president. He was a master illusionist. He wrapped repression in hymns, laced dictatorship with Scripture, and managed to convince an entire generation that silence was patriotism.

For 24 years, Moi ruled with the soft glove of pastoral platitudes and the iron fist of state brutality. He shut down intellectual spaces, reduced parliament to a laughing stock, and built the single most efficient fear infrastructure this country has ever seen.

Opposition figures were tortured. Universities were suffocated. And corruption? It flourished like well-watered maize.

But Kenyans sang for him. Kenyans called him professor of politics.

Why?

Because he crushed you, but did it with a smile. And in Kenya, smiling tyranny apparently passes for charisma.

Multiparty Democracy: “We Won Back Our Voice”

In 1991, under immense local resistance and international pressure, Moi agreed to reintroduce multipartyism. It was celebrated as a triumph of democracy. But it wasn’t long before this, too, was
co-opted into a myth.

We didn’t get democracy.

We got tribal fragmentation with ballot boxes. Political parties became ethnic flags. Leaders built coalitions not around ideas, but around surnames. And the voter, disillusioned and economically
exhausted, was told to vote “one of your own” to protect “your interests.”

The myth of democratic competition masked the hard truth: Kenya had merely diversified its instruments of control. Instead of one big hammer, we now had several smaller ones, wielded by tribal kingpins dressed in national colours.

The Kibaki Illusion: “The Era of Reform”

Mwai Kibaki comes at a time when Kenya really needed him. A technocrat, economist, suit-wearer-in-chief. There was a moment, however brief, where Kenya exhaled.

Narc came in riding the wave of anti-Moi sentiment. Roads began to look like roads.
Education became, at least on paper, free. There was talk of institutions, accountability, merit.

But that dream aged quickly.

Kibaki’s presidency soon became a cautious, clubby affair. Reform was replaced by realignment. The Anglo Leasing scandal was a spectacular betrayal.

The Mount Kenya elite entrenched themselves. And when Kenyans demanded justice in the rigged 2007 election, Kibaki presided over one of the darkest chapters in our history—post-election violence that left over 1,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

We remember him as quiet and efficient. We forget that he signed off on impunity by agreeing to a coalition government that protected the perpetrators of the bloodshed.

The 2010 Constitution: “We Finally Got the Blueprint”

Ah yes. The Constitution. The Magna Carta of modern Kenya. A proud moment. Progressive, participatory, people-centred.

Fifteen years later, it is more quoted than applied.

Devolution was supposed to empower counties. What it did was create 47 new centres of looting. Governors became emperors with MCAs as their palace jesters.

Oversight was sacrificed at the altar of per diems and tenders.

The Constitution was meant to check presidential power. Instead, presidents now manipulate “public participation” like theatre, and ignore court orders like parking tickets. The tragedy of the 2010 Constitution is not that it failed. It’s that it was never really tried.

The Jubilee Dream: “Digital Government, Transformative Agenda”

When Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto came into power, they called themselves the “digital duo.” For a while, it looked like change had come.

Then laptops for schools became a punchline.

Dams disappeared.

The Standard Gauge Railway became a symbol of debt overdevelopment.

Uhuru talked about fighting corruption. He even pretended to be angry at his own Cabinet. But no one was ever seriously punished.

The handshake with Raila Odinga, meant to unify the country, ended up weakening both the opposition and accountability.

What Jubilee offered was not transformation. It was elite consolidation dressed in national flags and Instagram filters.

The Ruto Myth: “The Hustler’s President”

And now we arrive at our current chapter: President William Ruto, the self-styled hustler-in-chief. A man who speaks like he is still in opposition, even while signing tax hikes into law.

Ruto’s campaign was masterful myth-making.

He convinced millions of struggling Kenyans that he was one of them. That despite being second-in-command for a decade, he was somehow a political outsider.

That despite being among the wealthiest individuals in the country, he understood poverty from the inside.

Today, those very hustlers are being squeezed by a bloated, greedy state.

Bread is taxed.

Fuel is unaffordable.

And the taxman has become more feared than the devil.

Meanwhile, the "dynasties" he claimed to oppose now dine with him at the State House. Political theatre remains our most heavily funded ministry.

So What Now?

Kenya has not failed because of a lack of resources, or laws, or talent.

Kenya has failed because we have lived too long under the shadow of myths crafted in political war rooms and sold in press conferences as gospel truth.

These myths have one thing in common: they all shift responsibility away from power, and onto the people.

They say: be patient. Wait. Hope. Pray. Vote.

Then wait some more.

But the time for patience has expired.

What we require now is political clarity. Civic vigilance. A citizenry that no longer confuses speeches with strategy, or roads with justice.

We must learn to ask not what politicians say, but what they do when no one is watching.

Until we rip off these mythological masks and confront the raw, often ugly truth of our political past and present, we will continue living in a republic of well-dressed lies.

The ballot is not enough.

The myth must die.

Only then can the republic live.

Kenya istahili heshima!