Cracks in the System
Across the globe, the people are losing faith in their governments. In Kenya, citizens have flooded the streets for the last two years demanding accountability. In Washington, Congress stalls while American communities struggle with basic needs. In Lagos, young people rise against police brutality, only to be met with repression by the same police. In London, inequality and political gridlock leave many disillusioned. In Indonesia and Nepal, young people have taken matters into their own hands and gone after corrupt politicians.
The story is the same in country after country: centralized governments are failing to solve the crises of our time. From climate change to inequality, from youth unemployment to food insecurity, the systems designed to govern us have become too slow, too corrupt, or too detached from the realities of ordinary people. And this is not by accident. Centralized government was never designed to empower the people. It was designed to control them through centring power in the hands of a few monied elite. And today, this governance model is showing its limits. It’s crumbling.
A Model Built on Control, not Nation Building, Dignity Creativity or Imagination
The modern state — especially in Africa — is a colonial inheritance. The bureaucracies, parliaments, and centralized administrations were imposed to subjugate the people, extract wealth, maintain “order”, and consolidate power in the hands of a few. These structures were built vertically, with decisions flowing from the top down.
That design and essense of the state has not changed. Post-independence, the majority of African states swapped out colonial governors for local elites, mainly sons and daughters of colonial chiefs and royalists, but the architecture of centralized control and subjugation remained with education systems designed to populate that governance system. In the 21st century, it is painfully clear that this design is mismatched with our current and emerging challenges.
File picture. Training workers to install solar panels at health clinics in Rwanda provides clean-energy. Photo. CC/Pixnio
Consider the climate crisis. Addressing it requires communities to adopt local solutions — from water conservation to renewable energy microgrids and other energy sources. Yet our centralized governments cling to mega-projects and international deals that often enrich elites through kickbacks and leave the local people excluded.
Take youth unemployment. In Kenya alone, nearly 70% of the population is under 35. Centralized governments promise “jobs for youth” every election cycle, but bureaucracies cannot generate livelihoods at scale. Communities, cooperatives, and grassroots innovators are already experimenting with creative solutions — but lack the resources because centralized systems hoard them at the top. A few years ago a community on an island in Lake Victoria installed a local power solution. What did the government do through the national power utility? It went and brought down the grid ostensibly because the people had not acquired a license before building it. Extractivism. The end result? A disconnect so deep that governments appear to live in one world, while citizens survive in another.
When Governments Fail, Citizens Step in
The COVID 19 pandemic laid this bare. As states fumbled with lockdowns, corruption scandals, and slow relief in the United States, ordinary citizens mobilized and organized themselves. Mutual aid groups distributed food, neighbours raised funds for the sick, and digital networks spread reliable health information when official communication failed.
Similarly, the #GenZ uprising in Kenya in 2024 was a stark lesson in the power of citizens. Young people mobilized within days, using social media, art, and collective courage to demand accountability. They did not wait for political parties, formal institutions or conclaves. They acted.
This is not unique to Kenya or the US. Across the world, where governments stall, citizens step in. In Brazil, communities have pioneered participatory budgeting. In India, women’s collectives have organised around food security. In Europe, citizen assemblies are experimenting with climate policy. Everywhere on planet Earth, the signal is clear: centralized states are losing legitimacy fast, while grassroots initiatives are gaining momentum when it comes to addressing the challenges facing the people.
The Problem With Elites
Why do centralized elites cling so tightly to power even as they fail to use it effectively? The answer is simple: survival. Elites benefit from control. They monopolize resources, dictate narratives, and suppress dissent because decentralization threatens their privileges. A government that truly empowers citizens would weaken the political class. And so, instead of reform, we often see repression: protesters shot at and jailed, activists harassed, abducted, and killed. Digital freedoms curtailed.
Here lies the irony: in trying to hold on to control, centralized elites are accelerating their own obsolescence. Each act of repression is driving more people into organizing alternatives. Each scandal exposes the hollowness of centralized promises of politicians. Each failure creates more hunger for grassroots solutions. All politics is local.
The 20th century vs. the 21st century
The 20th century belonged to centralized governments. Mass bureaucracies, political parties, and nation-states expanded their reach, promising order and progress. For a time, they delivered — industrialization, infrastructure, and welfare states. The 21st century, however, is different. The scale, speed, and complexity of today’s crises cannot be solved by distant, centralized systems. They require agility, creativity, and trust — qualities found in communities, not in bureaucracies.
Technology has also shifted the balance. Digital platforms allow decentralized coordination across vast geographies. A WhatsApp group can mobilize faster than a ministry. A grassroots crowdfunding campaign can deliver aid quicker than a government tender. Centralized governments are dinosaurs in this age of networks.
Our Alternative: Grassroots Governance
So what’s the answer in our view? Not chaos or anarchy. We are not advocating for the absence of government. Our alternative is grassroots governance: citizen-led organizing that brings decision-making, resources, and accountability closer to the people. Grassroots governance is not a utopian dream. It is how humanity has always organized. Long before the nation-state, communities governed themselves through councils, elders, assemblies, and traditions of collective responsibility. These systems were dismantled by colonialism, but their wisdom endures.
In grassroots governance:
- Decisions are made locally, by those most affected.
- Resources are managed collectively, not siphoned upward.
- Accountability is immediate — you cannot ignore the neighbour you live with.
- Leadership is rotational and shared, not permanent and centralized.
This model is not about romanticizing the past. It is about adapting timeless wisdom to modern challenges. Prof. Kivutha Kibwana, during his two terms as the Governor of Makueni County, demonstrated and implemented this form of governance — a huge success.
Why Utu Matters
At the heart of African traditional grassroots governance systems is a philosophy: Utu (or Ubuntu). Utu reminds us that “I am because we are.” No one is an island. It is a recognition that humanity is relational, not individualistic. That leadership must serve the community, not elevate the self. Centralized governments often strip away this relational ethos, reducing citizens to taxpayers, voters or statistics. Utu restores it. It states that governance is not about rulers and the ruled, but about us as communities in balance with one another and with the ecosystem that sustains us. In this era of climate led ecosystem collapse, inequalities and their resultant indignity and polarization, this ethic is not just ancient, fossilized African wisdom but a global necessity.
Movement Building: The Bridge to the Future
How do we transition from centralized failure to grassroots governance? Movements. Movements are how citizens reclaim agency. They are the bridge between frustration and transformation. They create spaces where ordinary people learn skills, build consensus, and experiment with new models of leadership. Kenya’s #GenZ uprising of 2024 and recent Sri Lanka and Nepal uprisings have shown the raw power of youth movements. The task ahead now is to channel that energy into sustained organizing — not just moments of protest, but long-term structures of governance. Movements must become the incubators of tomorrow’s citizen-led systems.
Movements are how citizens reclaim agency. They are the bridge between frustration and transformation. They create spaces where ordinary people learn skills, build consensus
We must imagine and be creative. But passionate mobilizing is not enough. We must train in movement building and organizing. The people need strategy, tools, and values to translate outrage into positive, long-term, sustainable outcomes.
The end of an era, the dawn of another
Centralized power is failing. From corruption scandals to policy paralysis, from repression to incompetence, the evidence is overwhelming. The model has run its course. This, however, is not the end of governance. It is the beginning of something new — or rather, something ancient rediscovered. Communities are ready to govern themselves, armed with both ancestral wisdom and modern tools. Utu provides the philosophy. Movement building provides the pathway.
The question is not whether centralized governments will decline. The question is: will we be ready with alternatives when they do? The future of governance will not be handed down from above. It will be built from the ground up. The real Bottom Up. That future is already here, in the courage and…
