YVONNE'S TAKE: Projects - Prices and praises

There is something curious about the way we discuss development projects in this country.

A proposal is announced, an agreement is signed, a groundbreaking ceremony is held, and almost immediately, the conversation begins to take on a life of its own.

Except that, increasingly, the conversation is not about the project. It is about the politician associated with it.

In Kenya, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discuss a project without first declaring your allegiance to the person associated with it.

Take the proposed Dangote refinery in Lamu, which has just had its groundbreaking ceremony.

The project, estimated at $16 billion or Ksh.2 trillion, is intended to process up to 700,000 barrels of crude oil daily, with ambitions of strengthening regional energy security and reducing dependence on imported petroleum products.

It is a project of considerable scale, with potentially significant economic implications.

It also raises questions about land rights, environmental safeguards, financing and the distribution of its anticipated benefits.

These are legitimate matters for public scrutiny, not necessarily arguments against the project itself.

Yet, as the public conversation unfolds, one cannot help noticing how easily the substance gets lost in the politics.

Praise is amplified, political allegiances are declared, and every development becomes another occasion to celebrate a favoured leader.

Sometimes, the enthusiasm seems less concerned with what a project will deliver than with who deserves the credit for it.

The political cheerleading can become so overwhelming that asking a question begins to look like an act of provocation.

One can welcome an investment without suspending one's critical faculties.

One can appreciate the promise of industrialisation, jobs and economic opportunity while asking difficult questions about financing, ownership, environmental safeguards and who ultimately benefits.

These positions are not contradictory. They are the very questions that ought to accompany a project of this magnitude.

And yet, increasingly, the response to scrutiny is not an answer.

It is an attempt to establish who is asking, whose side they are on and what their supposedly hidden motives might be, including their ethnic background.

We have become so accustomed to sorting people into political camps that we assume we know their motives before we have considered their arguments.

Disagreement becomes hostility, a question becomes an attack, and an alternative view becomes evidence of disloyalty.

Sometimes, the labels carry undertones that reach beyond political affiliation, drawing on assumptions about a person's background or presumed community loyalties.

The effect is the same: The substance of the argument disappears beneath the identity assigned to the person making it.

It narrows the space for independent thought and makes it harder for citizens to assess issues on their merits.

It also creates the impression that public projects belong to political personalities and their supporters, rather than to the entire country whose resources, institutions and people will ultimately be affected by them.

Leaders should be recognised when they contribute to meaningful progress, and citizens are entitled to celebrate developments they believe will improve their lives.

Nor should every expression of praise be dismissed as insincere, or every sceptical question automatically be assumed to be correct.

But appreciating a leader's contribution is not the same as placing that leader beyond scrutiny.

And supporting a project does not require us to endorse every decision made in its name.

The distinction matters because development is supposed to be about outcomes, not political trophies.

Jobs, affordable energy, economic opportunity and improved living standards are not prizes to be awarded to politicians.

They are the results against which public decisions should be measured.

That standard cannot depend on who happens to be in power, which party claims credit or which political camp is celebrating.

Otherwise, accountability becomes selective, and public debate becomes little more than competing performances of loyalty.

A project does not become more viable because we praise its champions more enthusiastically.

Neither does it become less viable because someone asks difficult questions about it.

Its merits must be established by evidence, its promises tested against delivery, and its consequences measured against the public interest.

We should be able to welcome an idea without worshipping its architect, question its implementation without being branded an enemy, and change our minds when the evidence demands it.

And if we cannot tell the difference between the two, perhaps the question we ought to be asking is not which political camp we belong to, but whether we have allowed our political allegiances to diminish our most important role of all: that of citizens, entitled and obliged to hold power to account.