A well performing district mayor recently tendered his resignation for conduct unbecoming. Of course his predicament comes on the heels of the departure of two other high ranking officials from the executive and the judiciary on the account of a failure to live up to the expectations of their offices. For the mayor, it was the case of ‘tekiniki’ gone sour. 

Regular readers of this column will have come across the phenomenon of "gutekinika” as a practice among some unscrupulous district authorities. For the visitors, gutekinika is roughly an effort on the part of district (perhaps other entities, too) authorities to circumvent processes; the shortcuts they create often prevent them from achieving large ambitions and are therefore left with the option of having to inflate results in order to create an illusion that expectations are being met.

In its sophisticated form, it is white-collar deception. And were we to call a spade by its name we would say it is, plain and simple, cheating or lying. Its many characteristics are for its bearer to imagine themselves to be more cleaver than the rest, leading to a false self-confidence and certain arrogance. It inflates the ego.

Moreover, those who have tasted it swear by its addictive effects. It blinds its practitioner to the illusion that others are susceptible to manipulation because they are incapable of seeing or hearing or that they have lost their basic senses, in general.

It is a practice upon which some have dangerously lived. That it has brought success for some probably has led others to think about trying it. However, it is a road that leads to a dark alley. In the end, it is an exercise in self-deception, a sword upon which one falls.

In a hard-hitting editorial after the resignation of the Mayor, this newspaper questioned "how widespread this practice might be, especially at the grassroots.” In this case, the practice in question was the attempted ‘gag order’ by the district mayor of Kirehe on all leaders in his district during a recent visit by the Minister of Local Government to the Eastern Province. According to reports, and in a clear attempt to pre-empt criticism, the Mayor ordered that without his consent, "No one in his district was allowed to pose a question to the minister.”

Somehow the Minister caught wind of the manoeuvres and is said to have been incensed by the Mayor’s attempt to play the tiki taka on him. Unfortunate for the Mayor, he was caught. And now he’s gone.

It baffles the mind why he would expose himself to such circumstances. That is because he was actually one of the star performers among the district mayors in the 2013/14 Imihigo (performance contracts). His district earned the fifth spot in the district performance evaluation countrywide. Now, as the editorial intimated, this leaves room for some to wonder whether all this was a result of the ‘tekiniki.’

However, results elsewhere tell us that we must extend to him the benefit of the doubt. This is a mayor who was also a star performer on extending access to maternal health in which dramatic reduction in complications due to pregnancy, a major cause of lost lives among expectant mothers, was observed.

One of the doctors working in this area even bragged: "Maternal health services access is at 70 per cent. This is a great achievement. According to World Health Organization (WHO), an expectant mother requires at least between 30-50 minutes to be operated. In Kirehe it takes 54 minutes. We are almost hitting the international standards.”

Old cadres of the nation

In all this, one thing is worth nothing. According to sources with knowledge of what transpired in the Eastern Province, the mayor was admonished particularly because such conduct unbecoming of an old cadre of his political party.

For a party in government, that must say something in terms of holding each other accountable. Elsewhere, being an old cadre of a ruling party is a license to ride roughshod. Thus the words of a mortified man: "I am one of the old cadres of this nation. I can’t continue serving after one of my staff accused me of keeping his mouth shut.”

Words that should echo to others and serve as a reminder that tekiniki is, at best, a bandage – never a cure.