Lecturers at Egerton University sing solidarity songs at the university during the launch of their strike under the leadership of UASU National Secretary General Dr Constantine Wasonga on October 17,2022. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

This past week, I have been reading Ahmed Issack Hassan's biography, ‘Referee of a Dirty Ugly Game’. Ahmed is a former chair of the transitional Interim Independent Electoral Commission and founding chair of its successor, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

While Ahmed and his fellow commissioners may have faded away from national public memory, the former chair has been gracious enough to immortalise his experience in his biography. Going through it, one cannot fail to see how the chips are falling in place both in our politics and the economy.

It is good for the country he has documented the dirty ugly games politicians and senior public officials play behind the scenes, all to feed their greed for power and money. In the process, they sacrifice the very public good they were sworn in to serve and suck blood out of the masses they represent.

This biography equivocally confirms that institutions established by the Constitution to represent the people and oversight management of public resources are the weakest link in the country’s constitutional and economic governance order. For the avoidance of doubt, I am referring to Parliament and the 47 County Assemblies.

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