When the idea of devolution was first introduced to Kenyans in the lead up to the Constitution of Kenya 2010, there was a lot of promise and possibility, the kind of hope that makes people imagine entirely new futures for themselves and their communities. It spoke to a country that had long been organized around a distant center of power, where opportunity often felt like it was reserved for those who were closer to the capital and if we are being completely honest, closer to the tribe in power.
Devolution carried with it the allure of jobs being created across all counties, of young people finally having a reason to return home instead of building their lives in overcrowded cities. We dreamt of local economies growing from within rather than waiting for trickle down effects that rarely arrived. We were told that with devolution, there would be hospitals that understood local needs and roads that connected forgotten areas. Finally, alas, a leadership that could be seen and held accountable without the intimidating distance of national bureaucracy. It was not just a policy shift – it was an emotional one, a reimagining of belonging and opportunity.
For many, it felt like Kenya was finally redistributing resources and, well, dignity.
And for a time, there were glimpses of that promise taking shape as counties began to build, hire and assert their presence in ways that had never quite been possible before, creating a sense that perhaps the country was moving toward something more balanced and inclusive. On paper, the idea was grand.
But as the years have passed what is becoming more apparent to the ordinary Kenyan, the one who is less concerned with governance structures and more concerned with the rising cost of survival is that this is no longer about opportunity but about endurance and stretching incomes that no longer stretch far enough. The reality it seems, is that the expansion of government at the county level has become impossible to separate from the expansion of expenditure and in many cases, excess. This is because new layers of leadership have emerged with their own priorities and their own appetites. What was once envisioned as a redistribution of power has, in practice, often looked like a multiplication of it, creating numerous centers where decisions are made and resources are controlled, but not always in ways that visibly improve the lives of those they were meant to serve.
Reports and findings from institutions such as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Auditor General of Kenya have painted a troubling picture of how some of these resources are being handled, highlighting patterns of questionable procurement, stalled or incomplete projects, ballooning wage bills and financial leakages that are often acknowledged but rarely followed by consequences that feel transformative.
What emerges from this is a pattern that begins to reshape public perception, slowly turning what was once hope into skepticism, and skepticism into something more corrosive – disillusionment. So leadership has indeed moved closer to the people geographically, that is not in doubt. However, the lived experience of many Kenyans suggests that the gap between those who govern and those who struggle has not narrowed in any meaningful way, and may in some cases, have widened. The proximity that was meant to foster accountability has not always translated into responsiveness, and the visibility of leaders has not necessarily resulted in better outcomes for the communities that placed their trust in them.
So basically nothing has changed, other than the fact that we now have more hands stealing from the national coffers. More offices created with nothing to show for it. More buildings to build, more “state houses” for the governors, senators.
Has devolution, in its current form, become a burden rather than a benefit?
It is a difficult question, not least because it forces a confrontation with an uncomfortable truth, which is that the concept of devolution itself was never inherently flawed, and that removing it would risk returning the country to a centralized system that historically marginalized large portions of the population and concentrated development in a way that left many regions behind. Devolution, at its core, remains one of the most ambitious and potentially transformative ideas embedded in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. And yet, a good idea, when poorly managed, can begin to resemble the very problem it was designed to solve. Which is what we are currently witnessing.
What Kenya appears to be grappling with now is not the failure of devolution as a principle, but the failure of accountability to grow alongside it, the failure of systems to effectively check misuse, and the gradual normalization of excess in a context where scarcity defines the daily lives of millions. In such an environment, it becomes increasingly difficult for citizens to distinguish between a system that is fundamentally broken and one that is simply being misused at scale.
Perhaps the most unsettling realization is that devolution redistributed corruption, extending its reach into spaces that were once too distant from the center to access such levels of power and resources. Without equally distributed mechanisms of oversight and consequence, this shift has allowed old habits to take root in new places, often with a familiarity that makes them harder to uproot.
In the end, the question is no longer simply about where power is located, but about whether that power still carries a meaningful sense of responsibility to the people it was meant to serve, or whether it has, in too many instances, become an end in itself.
