The Mt Kenya Times 
Kenya cannot afford the politics of ethnic rhetoric
By Hadassah Karangu
Kenya has travelled a long and difficult road toward national unity, and every election cycle risks unravelling the progress made.
The controversy surrounding Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale’s recent remarks has reignited that anxiety. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission has launched an investigation following public complaints. Duale insists his words — drawn from a Somali proverb — were misquoted and stripped of context, and has declined to apologise. Many Kenyans remain unconvinced.
Whether the remarks constitute hate speech is for the law to determine. What is already clear is the damage that follows when public leaders frame national issues through an ethnic lens.
For many in the Mt Kenya region, the comments felt like a direct attack on their community. For others, they reflect a broader, increasingly bitter political rivalry between former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and leaders aligned with President William Ruto. Whichever side one takes, the danger is the same: political disagreements becoming ethnic disagreements.
Duale’s counter-argument — that the NCIC should investigate Gachagua for equally divisive past remarks — raises a legitimate principle. The law must be applied equally. Selective accountability corrodes public confidence in institutions and creates the perception that justice follows political alignment rather than evidence.
But equal enforcement cannot become a shield against legitimate scrutiny.
Kenya’s history carries enough warnings about where ethnic rhetoric leads. Communities that live peacefully together can fracture quickly when political language trades in suspicion and stereotype. Neighbours become opponents. Distrust replaces dialogue.
Political power is temporary. The words spoken in pursuit of it can echo for generations.
This moment is not only about Duale or Gachagua. It is about whether Kenya is drifting back toward politics that judges citizens by their surnames rather than their ideas. Every leader — in government and opposition alike — carries a constitutional and moral duty to protect national cohesion.
Elections come and go. Neighbours remain.
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