There are three different types of government:
Unitary
Federal

I. Unitary Government

The unitary government as one can tell from the above figure is a centralized government. It is a government in which all powers held by the government belong to a single, central agency. The central government creates local units of government for its own convenience. Most of the governments in the world are unitary. One single central organ is Parliament it holds all the power of the government. Local governments do exist but solely to relieve Parliament of burdens it could perform only with difficulty and inconvenience.
The central government in a unitary system is responsible for managing national-level concerns such as foreign relations, national defense and national economic policy. The central ruler or decision-making body controls all aspects of governance, because there are no powers or functions legally reserved to other levels of authority. All areas of government ultimately are under the authority of a single body, so states with unitary systems often have more uniform laws and regulations than federations. The central government also might be responsible for appointing the personnel of lower levels of government, such as regional or provincial governors.
Government decisions in unitary states are not necessarily made by the central authority. Some unitary governments delegate some degree of decision-making power to more regional or local authorities in a process called “devolution,” which often is instituted to accommodate ethnic or linguistic minorities who desire greater autonomy.

From this one can tell that Kenya is indeed in this category as the Kenyan system does fit the descriptions above. To understand this sytem quite a bit further let us look into some of the advantages and disadvantages of this system.

ADVANTAGES

1. Uniform policies, laws, political, enforcement, administration throughout the country
2. Less duplication of services and fewer conflicts between national and local governments
3. Greater unity and stability

DISADVANTAGES

1. Central government out of touch with local concerns
2. Slow in meeting local problems
3. If the central government gets too involved in local problems it may not meet the needs of all its citizens

II. Federal Government

As opposed to the unitary system of governance, the federal system is itself the system established by the states who come together to form the central government, central legislative body such as the parliament and the judicial system. A distinct, defining characteristic of any federal system is that the states form the central government and surrender a part of their powers and jurisdictions to the central governmental. The relation between the central government and states, and their empowerment is governed by the constitution and is administrated by the judiciary.

ADVANTAGES

1. Federal unity but local governments handle local problems
2. Local government/officials have to be responsive to people who elect them
3. Central government can devote more time and energy to national and international problems
4. More opportunities for participation in making decisions – in influencing what is taught in the schools and in deciding where highways and government projects are to be built DISADVANTAGES

1. Duplication of services
2. Citizens living in different parts of the country will be treated differently, not only in spending programs, such as welfare, but in legal systems that assign in different places different penalties to similar offenses or that differentially enforce civil rights laws
3. Disputes over power/national supremacy versus state’s rights
4. International relations – states may pass laws that counter national policy

III. Confederate Government

A confederate government is an alliance of independent states. A central organ – the confederate government – has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it. Typically, confederate governments have had limited powers and only in such fields as defense and foreign commerce. Confederations are very rare in today’s world. The European Union is the closest approach to a confederation today.

ADVANTAGES

1. Keeps power at local levels preventing the growth of a large central government
2. Makes it possible for the several states to cooperate in matters of common concern and also retain their separate identities

DISADVANTAGES

1. Weakness of central government makes it unable to enforce laws or collect taxes
2. lack of unity and common laws

Majimbo
Majimbo (the Swahili word for, “regions") is a Swahili term that is commonly used in Kenya to refer to the idea of political devolution of power to the country's regions. It is alleged by critics, including former vice-president Oginga Odinga in his book Not Yet Uhuru, to have been coined by European settlers in Kenya's White Highlands region, around the time of independence in 1963, who preferred to retain an autonomous, ethnically-based governance over the region. Majimbo is regarded by some to be a federal system however this is not well defined. Majimbo is a system that has faced a lot of criticism and is said by some to be a plot to instigate communal violence in Kenya.

Is Kenya a Quasi-federal State?
Kenya attained independence in 1963 and began with a quasifederal system of government (popularly known as Majimbo government), which granted significant powers to elected ethno-regional leaders and assemblies.

However (as has also been stated earlier), this devolved system was very short-lived when the ruling party-KANU changed the independence Constitution(1963) in favour of a centralized unitary system.

So does this mean Kenya is not a quasi-federal state?

Well, you can’t exactly say so because the New Constitution (2010) has re-established this quasi-federal system through Chapter Eleven on devolution, although with some variations.

Does this mean Kenya is not a unitary state?

The only way to truly find out is by looking into the New Constitution to see what it really says about Kenya’s current system.

Devolution

What it is it?

A devolved system of government:

* Followsthe multi-dimensional approach to the organization and management ofgovernance and state power. * Seeks to organize governance and manage state power both vertically and horizontally. * Seeks to define, distribute and constrain the use of state both vertically and horizontally * It is a system that combines selfgovernance and shared governance. Self governance * at the local level and shared governance at the national level. * Under this system, one creates two ormore levels of government that are coordinate * and not subordinate to each other. * None of the levels of government is a mere agent of the other. Each is created and protected by the constitution. * The functions each performs are set outand defined by the constitution. * The resources each uses to discharge these functions are also provided for in accordance with constitutional provisions.