Post by adongo12345 on Oct 10, 2005 3:25:14 GMT 3
By Adongo Ogony
We need to clear the air on a few things.
First on
Linah Jebii Kilimo’s “defection” to the Orange team.
Is it a big deal?
You bet it is.
Forget the numbers she brings in terms of votes. For the next week or so, Kilimo can expect the Banana campaigners to be insulting her and declaring how useless she is supposed to be. She should ignore the insults. She will be adequately compensated with generous embrace from the masses at the Orange rallies. That is what matters.
Linah Jebii Kilimo is reputed to be pretty smart and a person with integrity. These are scarce qualities in our politicians that Jebii brings to the table in the Orange camp. The real deal is that her defection creates a whole mess in the banana republic. Who is going next? That is the question in everyone’s mind. I don’t think the Yes team can afford another lost week or two. They would be gone.
The Yes team already ruined a whole two weeks since Kibaki came back from New York. This was supposed to be their rapid fire campaign period. Mzee was back after a fairly successful trip to New York and London. He was supposed to come swinging telling Kenyans how beautiful the Wako Draft is. Kenyans were waiting to hear what Kibaki had to say about the Referendum. In fact a growing group was waiting to ask him to postpone the referendum to cool things down. I am glad Kibaki rejected the idea of postponing the referendum. He actually has no powers to do anything like that. The real issue for Kenyans is trying to figure out where Kibaki wants to take the country in the last two years of his rule.
Kibaki is our president; surely he must have a vision for the country. And it is at times like this, when the nation is entangled in a historic battle for a new constitution you expect your president to lay his vision for the country and the constitution right in the open and engage the nation in a dialogue and debate as we make the decisions for the destiny of our country for generations to come. That is called leadership. It is not a matter of herding MPs to pass votes in parliament. Kibaki’s position was that those opposing the Wako Draft were “defeated” in parliament and should stop agitating against the Wako Draft. He then went on to refer to them as “wapumbavu” and “liars”. I have always held the view that it is dangerous to insult people when you need their votes, but that is just me.
The real problem here for the president is that he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there is a reason Kenyans are going to the referendum. The referendum frees the nation from the decisions of parliament on matters of constitution making. The sovereign people of Kenyan get to choose their destiny at the referendum. In fact we should not be voting on a constitution proposed by parliament, but that is another story altogether. The fact of the matter is that Kenyans are very eager to make a decision at the referendum and they will come November 21.
If the MPs including cabinet ministers think that the decision they made in parliament on the Draft Constitution is good for Kenyans they will go and defend their position in front of the people. If others think Wako Draft is a disaster for the nation it is their right and duty to stand with the people to denounce it. That is why it is ridiculous to hear the Yes Choir bellowing the tiresome fire so and so song at every rally. But let’s take one thing at a time.
Now what was the Kiraitu’s blunder that ruined Kibaki’s homecoming? His silly, illegal and bellicose announcement that the Yes team will steal from the public to finance their campaign which he still thinks is a government project. We know they are doing that, but did he have to climb the roof tops to ask Kenyans to clap for them as they rob the nation to finance a partisan project? I mean we see everyday military and police helicopters used to ferry Yes campaigners to rallies. Musikari Kombo had no problem paying councilors to come and strategize about the Yes campaign in Kakamega. And now they want to dish out land and National Parks like candy for votes.
Of course people need land. The Maasai community should be the first beneficiaries of a park like
Amboseli National Park right in their midst, but nobody should lie to us that these haphazard allocations are truly geared to meet the needs of the local populations. How about the people in Taita Taveta and other coastal communities? Do they get a share of Tsavo National Park? Should people in the Coast Province ask for title deeds and ownership of the
Mombasa Port and National Parks in the area before they can vote Yes?
These were the issues that Kenyans wanted addressed through meaningful devolution of powers and resources to benefit all Kenyan communities. The Wako Draft has killed any hopes of meaningful devolution to address the issues of resource allocation and utilization and now the Kibaki government is engaged in reckless and arbitrary allocation of resources to buy votes. This must be denounced by all Kenyans.
Ironically the Yes team has been boasting that the Wako Draft creates the Kenya Land Commission to deal with land and stop the president from arbitrarily allocating land for political gains. Isn’t that exactly what is happening now? If Kibaki is very eager to give out land, may be he should consider giving out a small fraction of his vast land holdings to landless Kenyans and let Kenyans come with a systematic and comprehensive mechanism to help sort out the simmering land crisis in the nation.
The land problem in Kenya cannot be solved with a few visits to State House by this group and the other one. If that were the case the problem would have been solved a long time ago. I hear Mungatana and company are preparing their list of land parcels and parks they need to bribe voters. We should remind these people that it is one thing to produce fake money to buy votes like we show in 1992, but producing fake land is going to be a whole different ball of wax.
The trouble with the Yes men is that they can thump their chests in parliament and work themselves up with silly accusations about UN agencies funding the No campaign. They talk large in hotel rooms. Kiraitu did just that when he first made his public funding for Wako Draft announcements in front of eleven other cabinet ministers, none of whom had the guts to tell him to tone down the arrogance. As soon as Kiraitu made his announcement people like Martha Karua and Maina Kamanda were busy telling Kenyans in a rally that they will use public money and those who don’t like it can “go to hell”. Those are dangerous things to say to people who already have lots of doubts and problems with the Wako Constitution.
Arrogance and impunity are some of the problems with our friends, never mind that they are selling us a rotten product which they really need to cover carefully. No this folks don’t bother with little things like finesse. They come blazing with stinking stuff and insist you smell it first before you buy it and they are pissed when the Wananchi say “No Thanks”.
It is the Kiraitu machismo that really ruined Kibaki’s homecoming and soon the president had no message for the people about the constitution and the Yes campaign that was already going downhill descended into a cesspool and that brings us to the incidents in Kisii and Bungoma and what each side must do to save us from reckless tongues and outright thugs.
Before that let me say something to those who are subtly suggesting that using public money to fund referendums is a normal practice even in the Western countries. I don’t have the time to delve into how referendums are funded but I know one thing. The Kenyans taxpayer is funding the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) to the tune of billions of taxpayer money to run the referendum. The public is footing the bill for the CKRC civic education which seems to be going nowhere.
The total bill to the Kenyan taxpayer considering all the money we spent in the Bomas process will easily surpass Kshs 10 billion even double that amount. So yes, Kenyans are footing the bill. What the public does not have to pay for is for Kiraitu to go and campaign for his fantasy constitution anywhere in the country. Think about it. What would happen if all the ten or so million voters had their own version of a constitution that they felt was good for Kenya? How much money would we have to give each group to campaign?
At any rate the Kenyan laws are already clear that no public funds or resources are to be used in political campaigns. But try telling that to Kiraitu. He will be blast you out of there with his “No amount of intimidation will stop us from using government money and resources” mantra.
By the way someone should tell Kiraitu that there is no such a thing as “government money or resources”. We pay for the d**n government for crying out loud. Everything the government owns is public property. Any time Kiraitu and company use “government resources” for their campaign, they are stealing from the public. It is that simple.
Let me say a word about the Kisii rallies. I think all Kenyans should applaud the Kisii community for being able to hold two potentially explosive rallies within a short distance of each and keeping out violence from poking its ugly head except for a few diehards who were promptly apprehended. This is the way things should go around the country. Nyachae threw a challenge to the No team by choosing to have a rally on the same day and even took away the No venue but the other side calmly organized their rally in Ogembo town and put to shame the nonsense that the Kenyans are divided on tribal lines.
Kenyans are actually united across the tribal lines. I am not in the business of measuring crowds, but I know one thing, the No team has a healthy following in Nyachae’s own constituency and in the region as a whole. So where is the “tribalism” in the No campaign?
Everything went well in Kisii until I read reports about Nyachae having told his community not to agree to be led by an uncircumcised man. What makes a man descend to such low levels of reasoning, I asked myself? Nyachae is a smart guy. He is a successful businessman who employs hundreds of people including high level executives.
I asked myself, when Nyachae is recruiting a GM for his business, does he demand they unzip their pants so that he can take a good look at their you know what before he hires them? I don’t think so. Doesn’t Nyachae know that leadership is not about what is between the legs, but rather what is between the ears? I am sure he knows that. This brings me to only one conclusion. Nyachae’s ignorant words are not the words and actions of a crude and primitive mind. No, these are the actions of a desperate man. Nyachae is bewildered that the people he trusted to obey his every word are telling him “Mzee you are wrong”. Too bad because he is going to hear more of the same. Let’s keep crude tribalistic nonsense out of the referendum campaigns.
The Bungoma situation is also loaded with meaning and lessons for Kenyans as we approach November 21, 2005. The overall message is that Kenyans just like they did in 2002 General Elections are no longer willing to be prisoners of petty tribalism. The other lesson is that tribalistic leaders are getting nuts.
The crude attempts by Musikari Kombo to revive the Raila Wamalwa rivalry as a justification for the Luhya and Bukusu community in particular to support a rotten constitution from Wako is falling on deaf ears.
I am sure many of Wamalwa’s friends and members of his community would rather he was left to rest in peace. The often very frank Wamalwa did his best including warning Kenyans about what he called “Raila mania” and “Raila phobia”. Now it is up to Kombo to carry his own cross. Tell the people why they should vote for the Wako Constitution not why they should hate so and so. Raila’s name is not on the ballot. It Yes or No for the Wako Constitution.
The Orange rallies in Bungoma and the rest of Western Province, not to forget the historic rally at Kakamega Bukungu Stadium a week ago are further testimony that Kenyans across all tribes are united against the fraudulent Wako Constitution.
Kenyans know that what they are being offered has nothing to do with what they asked for. Why is it taking so long for people like Kombo, Kituyi, Wetangula and co to understand this simple fact? Instead some cowards have the evil mind to hire thugs particularly in Chwele, Wetangula’s neighbourhood, to attack people. This is what we have to stop.
The idea that one side will gain any ground in the campaign if they can disrupt the rally of the other side is just simply stupid. It doesn’t work and it is the source of all the violence. It has to be stopped. I want Mungatana to come to Bondo town and try telling those folks to forgo what they have struggled for and accept the aptly named “Wako Mongrel”. By the way it was my friend Miguna Miguna, a Toronto lawyer and a prolific political commentator who came up with that fitting name for that monstrosity from Wako.
I want Tuju who calls himself the “kiboko” for whipping errant politicians in Nyanza to come at least to Rarieda and tell his people about what is good with the Draft Constitution and not just how Kibaki fondly calls him “Ralph my son”.
As a matter of fact I think if we removed the abuses and futile violent attempts which are not helping anybody, we would have a very healthy and productive national debate across all communities in Kenya about what we need in a new constitution. The idea that the country is falling apart is neither here nor there. The skies are not falling all over Kenya.
It is just a few misguided politicians who have been abusing the masses ever since we elected them finally coming back to the people and realizing nobody has time for their nonsense. That is not a big deal. At least not for the people of Kenya. There is no need to panic at all, unless of course your name is Kiraitu Murungi, John Michuki, Murungaru, Kombo and other pretenders to the throne who keep lying to Kibaki that the whole country is behind the Wako Draft.
Lets keep the campaigns civil, stop worrying too much about peoples’ private parts, keep down the violence and enhance safety and security at rallies and we will have a very productive national discourse and referendum. It is important for the country. Kenyans need to speak and they need to do it now. The section of elites who have been contemptuous about the whole process should stop panicking and calling for postponement on basis of the elusive middle ground. The people of Kenya will determine the middle ground after the referendum.
Now a piece of advice for President Kibaki. I know you have been bombarded with requests, almost orders to fire the likes of Raila, Musyoka, Najib Balala, Ochilo Ayacko, Anyang’ Nyong’o and now we have Jebii Kilimo and God knows who is coming tomorrow. This must be a tough decision, considering it is coming from those who claim to be your protectors, God knows from what.
Now here are the options. You will lose the referendum that is almost a foregone conclusion now. What next? Yes, you have to fire some of your ministers. In fact you should dissolve the cabinet soon after the referendum results. That is the minimum.
The question is: Will you fire those who shall have dragged the country into a failed referendum and have been rejected by the people of Kenya or will you fire those who have stood firm with the Kenyan people as the referendum poll results are going to reveal? That really is the question you have to wrestle with Mr. President. My sense is you might need to hang on the coat tails of the winners at the referendum to get a little room to govern the country as opposed to sinking deeper with the losers. It is your call but you might want to start considering your options right now. The status quo cannot hold after the referendum.
Of course the political destiny of our country after the referendum will not be determined by what President Kibaki does and doesn’t do. The referendum will take that initiative away from the president’s hand. Where we go with the constitution from November 24 after the votes are in will lie squarely on the hands of the Kenyan people and the leadership formations that will emerge then. We have some very delicate and immediate issues to deal with.
Number one is to complete the constitutional review process. I am glad the general consensus seems to be that we have to go back to where Bomas left and sort our way from there. I think the referendum results are going to humble a lot of people and there is likely to be more respect and accommodation of the aspirations of the ordinary Kenyans as captured in the Bomas process. Of course we have to improve the Bomas Draft before we take it to the referendum.
I also think the supporters of the Bomas Draft shall have learnt the price of arrogance and being non-inclusive when they witness the demise of the arrogant State House crew who will flop at the referendum with all the money and resources they boast of. These are important lessons that are going to help us complete the constitutional process in the spirit of national cohesion and a common vision for what is good for the nation as opposed to what is good for those in power. Time will tell, but I am confident that the referendum is a new beginning that will lead us to the end of this journey. It cannot be an end in itself. Obviously.
The second question is what happens to the Kibaki government after they lose the referendum. The most practical thing would be for Kibaki to dissolve parliament and call for General Elections and bow out of politics with some honour. That won’t happen.
Technically Kibaki has the mandate to run the country till 2007. But let’s not forget that a NO vote means Kenyans will have rejected Kibaki’s vision for his country. A new constitution was supposed to be the single most significant gift and legacy Kibaki gave Kenyans.
After the referendum the promise of a new constitution will be the single most significant failure of the Kibaki regime. People who want to be simplistic can go ahead and say it is not the president’s fault. In fact they would go ahead and blame Raila and say this was just so that they can use the issue as a propaganda tool to campaign for the presidency. It really doesn’t matter.
The reality is that Kenyans are going to reject Kibaki’s attempt to manufacture a constitution for himself under the guise of giving Kenyans a new constitution. If Kibaki wanted to give Kenyans the constitution he promised us while campaigning for the presidency and not the one they cooked with Kiraitu and Nyachae after getting our votes, Kenyans would have had their constitution a long time ago and we would be busy doing other things today.
Kenyans rejecting the Kibaki Constitution will be the natural end of the Kibaki regime. He can prolong it. He can move gingerly to 2007, but it is really the end of the road and I think Kibaki should spend his remaining time in office building bridges to move the country to a new leadership. He has no other task more important than that. And by the way that new leadership will emerge from the grassroots just like we are seeing in the referendum not from State House. That is another lesson the referendum has in store for politicians.
On the lighter side of things the referendum campaign had its moments of comical relief last week. I want to give the Comedian of the Week Award in the referendum debate to the Minister for Internal Affairs John Michuki. He had some stiff competition, but the old man wins this hands down. I am referring to one of the biggest commando operations in the nation’s history which reportedly netted 18 Mungikists and their tools of trade in Kitengela, Nairobi.
First of all we had what the Standard Newspaper says looked like “TV clips from war-torn Iraq”
The crack Commando team were reported to be clad in night vision goggles, jet black uniforms, heavy arms and knives. And you thought the Mwenje/ Ndolo takedown was dramatic.
Inside the house after breaking the doors, the GSU squad found “flags, expensive leather seats, tobacco snuff, sheep dung, traditional brews, boiled fruits, a Kikuyu Christian Hymn book and a slaughtered sheep” Oh Yeah Michuki also said they seized nude photos of politicians who had gone to talk to Mungiki about the Referendum.
I suspect the politicians must have been pictured nude holding the Draft Constitution in one hand and something not so pleasant in the other hand. Anyhow Michuki has promised to unleash the pictures to the public. The nation waits.
Why do I find this comical?
Number one, it seems the government knew all along where the alleged Mungiki activities were taking place. What took them so long to swing into action and seize the offending “sheep dung” na kadhalika? Don’t we all just feel secure now?
My sense is that if Michuki and the Bumbling Musketeers at State House think they are going to win the Referendum by pinning Mungiki on the Orange Movement, they have a lot of work ahead of them.
I would suggest that when you are in the kind of trouble the Yes team find themselves in, you need more than Mungiki and nude photos to turn things around.
It is still a long way but my friends on the other side could do with some re-thinking. “This ain't working”, that should be their slogan right now.
One more thing before we give the Award to Michuki. Does anyone remember the letters Michuki is writing to the Chiefs, DCs, PCs promising them they will keep their jobs? To me it means someone is saying forget whatever constitution we will have tomorrow, we intend not to follow it. Michuki is saying they intend to break the law and only he knows how that is going to be done. Remember he told the Chiefs he is the one who knows what their job title will be called.
The big question is: If the government is breaking the law today, and they intend to break even more laws tomorrow, why do they still want us to vote for a constitution?
Finally, let me say something about the myth being spread by panicking Yes campaigners that if Kenyans reject the Kibaki/Wako Draft then we are doomed to be ruled by the same Kibaki under the current constitution which most Kenyans do not want. This is the latest fear campaign. Basically they are telling Kenyans our only choice is to decide how we want to be oppressed. We can choose oppression under the Wako Draft or we are being warned we will have the same under the old constitution.
No my friends by rejecting the Kibaki/Wako Draft, we are telling the powers that be that Kenyans have already rejected oppression altogether. Kenyans are not waiting for Kibaki or Raila to decide for us which constitution we need. Anyone who thinks Kenya will be the same after the referendum and Kibaki and the bumbling team at State House will just trudge along is eating too many bananas.
The victory that Kenyans will achieve at the referendum is a huge incremental, if you will, to our victory on Dec 2002. The people are marching forward and after November 21, 2005 we will be ready to say bye bye to our good friend Mwai Kibaki in that journey.
Like Moi, Kibaki will be destined to sit on the sidelines as the people of Kenyan move the nation forward. Kenyans will get the constitution they have been fighting for, that is for sure. We will be crazy to be waiting for Kibaki to help us get it. He has done everything to scuttle it. Kibaki will hang around for a while after the referendum. “Hang around” are the operative words.
Just one last thing. Am I the only one getting fed up with the smarties telling us the referendum debate is no longer about the constitution but rather about politics and power? How the heck are we supposed to talk about the constitution without talking about politics and power? Isn’t that what the constitution is all about?
The writer is a human rights activist
We need to clear the air on a few things.
First on
Linah Jebii Kilimo’s “defection” to the Orange team.
Is it a big deal?
You bet it is.
Forget the numbers she brings in terms of votes. For the next week or so, Kilimo can expect the Banana campaigners to be insulting her and declaring how useless she is supposed to be. She should ignore the insults. She will be adequately compensated with generous embrace from the masses at the Orange rallies. That is what matters.
Linah Jebii Kilimo is reputed to be pretty smart and a person with integrity. These are scarce qualities in our politicians that Jebii brings to the table in the Orange camp. The real deal is that her defection creates a whole mess in the banana republic. Who is going next? That is the question in everyone’s mind. I don’t think the Yes team can afford another lost week or two. They would be gone.
The Yes team already ruined a whole two weeks since Kibaki came back from New York. This was supposed to be their rapid fire campaign period. Mzee was back after a fairly successful trip to New York and London. He was supposed to come swinging telling Kenyans how beautiful the Wako Draft is. Kenyans were waiting to hear what Kibaki had to say about the Referendum. In fact a growing group was waiting to ask him to postpone the referendum to cool things down. I am glad Kibaki rejected the idea of postponing the referendum. He actually has no powers to do anything like that. The real issue for Kenyans is trying to figure out where Kibaki wants to take the country in the last two years of his rule.
Kibaki is our president; surely he must have a vision for the country. And it is at times like this, when the nation is entangled in a historic battle for a new constitution you expect your president to lay his vision for the country and the constitution right in the open and engage the nation in a dialogue and debate as we make the decisions for the destiny of our country for generations to come. That is called leadership. It is not a matter of herding MPs to pass votes in parliament. Kibaki’s position was that those opposing the Wako Draft were “defeated” in parliament and should stop agitating against the Wako Draft. He then went on to refer to them as “wapumbavu” and “liars”. I have always held the view that it is dangerous to insult people when you need their votes, but that is just me.
The real problem here for the president is that he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there is a reason Kenyans are going to the referendum. The referendum frees the nation from the decisions of parliament on matters of constitution making. The sovereign people of Kenyan get to choose their destiny at the referendum. In fact we should not be voting on a constitution proposed by parliament, but that is another story altogether. The fact of the matter is that Kenyans are very eager to make a decision at the referendum and they will come November 21.
If the MPs including cabinet ministers think that the decision they made in parliament on the Draft Constitution is good for Kenyans they will go and defend their position in front of the people. If others think Wako Draft is a disaster for the nation it is their right and duty to stand with the people to denounce it. That is why it is ridiculous to hear the Yes Choir bellowing the tiresome fire so and so song at every rally. But let’s take one thing at a time.
Now what was the Kiraitu’s blunder that ruined Kibaki’s homecoming? His silly, illegal and bellicose announcement that the Yes team will steal from the public to finance their campaign which he still thinks is a government project. We know they are doing that, but did he have to climb the roof tops to ask Kenyans to clap for them as they rob the nation to finance a partisan project? I mean we see everyday military and police helicopters used to ferry Yes campaigners to rallies. Musikari Kombo had no problem paying councilors to come and strategize about the Yes campaign in Kakamega. And now they want to dish out land and National Parks like candy for votes.
Of course people need land. The Maasai community should be the first beneficiaries of a park like
Amboseli National Park right in their midst, but nobody should lie to us that these haphazard allocations are truly geared to meet the needs of the local populations. How about the people in Taita Taveta and other coastal communities? Do they get a share of Tsavo National Park? Should people in the Coast Province ask for title deeds and ownership of the
Mombasa Port and National Parks in the area before they can vote Yes?
These were the issues that Kenyans wanted addressed through meaningful devolution of powers and resources to benefit all Kenyan communities. The Wako Draft has killed any hopes of meaningful devolution to address the issues of resource allocation and utilization and now the Kibaki government is engaged in reckless and arbitrary allocation of resources to buy votes. This must be denounced by all Kenyans.
Ironically the Yes team has been boasting that the Wako Draft creates the Kenya Land Commission to deal with land and stop the president from arbitrarily allocating land for political gains. Isn’t that exactly what is happening now? If Kibaki is very eager to give out land, may be he should consider giving out a small fraction of his vast land holdings to landless Kenyans and let Kenyans come with a systematic and comprehensive mechanism to help sort out the simmering land crisis in the nation.
The land problem in Kenya cannot be solved with a few visits to State House by this group and the other one. If that were the case the problem would have been solved a long time ago. I hear Mungatana and company are preparing their list of land parcels and parks they need to bribe voters. We should remind these people that it is one thing to produce fake money to buy votes like we show in 1992, but producing fake land is going to be a whole different ball of wax.
The trouble with the Yes men is that they can thump their chests in parliament and work themselves up with silly accusations about UN agencies funding the No campaign. They talk large in hotel rooms. Kiraitu did just that when he first made his public funding for Wako Draft announcements in front of eleven other cabinet ministers, none of whom had the guts to tell him to tone down the arrogance. As soon as Kiraitu made his announcement people like Martha Karua and Maina Kamanda were busy telling Kenyans in a rally that they will use public money and those who don’t like it can “go to hell”. Those are dangerous things to say to people who already have lots of doubts and problems with the Wako Constitution.
Arrogance and impunity are some of the problems with our friends, never mind that they are selling us a rotten product which they really need to cover carefully. No this folks don’t bother with little things like finesse. They come blazing with stinking stuff and insist you smell it first before you buy it and they are pissed when the Wananchi say “No Thanks”.
It is the Kiraitu machismo that really ruined Kibaki’s homecoming and soon the president had no message for the people about the constitution and the Yes campaign that was already going downhill descended into a cesspool and that brings us to the incidents in Kisii and Bungoma and what each side must do to save us from reckless tongues and outright thugs.
Before that let me say something to those who are subtly suggesting that using public money to fund referendums is a normal practice even in the Western countries. I don’t have the time to delve into how referendums are funded but I know one thing. The Kenyans taxpayer is funding the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) to the tune of billions of taxpayer money to run the referendum. The public is footing the bill for the CKRC civic education which seems to be going nowhere.
The total bill to the Kenyan taxpayer considering all the money we spent in the Bomas process will easily surpass Kshs 10 billion even double that amount. So yes, Kenyans are footing the bill. What the public does not have to pay for is for Kiraitu to go and campaign for his fantasy constitution anywhere in the country. Think about it. What would happen if all the ten or so million voters had their own version of a constitution that they felt was good for Kenya? How much money would we have to give each group to campaign?
At any rate the Kenyan laws are already clear that no public funds or resources are to be used in political campaigns. But try telling that to Kiraitu. He will be blast you out of there with his “No amount of intimidation will stop us from using government money and resources” mantra.
By the way someone should tell Kiraitu that there is no such a thing as “government money or resources”. We pay for the d**n government for crying out loud. Everything the government owns is public property. Any time Kiraitu and company use “government resources” for their campaign, they are stealing from the public. It is that simple.
Let me say a word about the Kisii rallies. I think all Kenyans should applaud the Kisii community for being able to hold two potentially explosive rallies within a short distance of each and keeping out violence from poking its ugly head except for a few diehards who were promptly apprehended. This is the way things should go around the country. Nyachae threw a challenge to the No team by choosing to have a rally on the same day and even took away the No venue but the other side calmly organized their rally in Ogembo town and put to shame the nonsense that the Kenyans are divided on tribal lines.
Kenyans are actually united across the tribal lines. I am not in the business of measuring crowds, but I know one thing, the No team has a healthy following in Nyachae’s own constituency and in the region as a whole. So where is the “tribalism” in the No campaign?
Everything went well in Kisii until I read reports about Nyachae having told his community not to agree to be led by an uncircumcised man. What makes a man descend to such low levels of reasoning, I asked myself? Nyachae is a smart guy. He is a successful businessman who employs hundreds of people including high level executives.
I asked myself, when Nyachae is recruiting a GM for his business, does he demand they unzip their pants so that he can take a good look at their you know what before he hires them? I don’t think so. Doesn’t Nyachae know that leadership is not about what is between the legs, but rather what is between the ears? I am sure he knows that. This brings me to only one conclusion. Nyachae’s ignorant words are not the words and actions of a crude and primitive mind. No, these are the actions of a desperate man. Nyachae is bewildered that the people he trusted to obey his every word are telling him “Mzee you are wrong”. Too bad because he is going to hear more of the same. Let’s keep crude tribalistic nonsense out of the referendum campaigns.
The Bungoma situation is also loaded with meaning and lessons for Kenyans as we approach November 21, 2005. The overall message is that Kenyans just like they did in 2002 General Elections are no longer willing to be prisoners of petty tribalism. The other lesson is that tribalistic leaders are getting nuts.
The crude attempts by Musikari Kombo to revive the Raila Wamalwa rivalry as a justification for the Luhya and Bukusu community in particular to support a rotten constitution from Wako is falling on deaf ears.
I am sure many of Wamalwa’s friends and members of his community would rather he was left to rest in peace. The often very frank Wamalwa did his best including warning Kenyans about what he called “Raila mania” and “Raila phobia”. Now it is up to Kombo to carry his own cross. Tell the people why they should vote for the Wako Constitution not why they should hate so and so. Raila’s name is not on the ballot. It Yes or No for the Wako Constitution.
The Orange rallies in Bungoma and the rest of Western Province, not to forget the historic rally at Kakamega Bukungu Stadium a week ago are further testimony that Kenyans across all tribes are united against the fraudulent Wako Constitution.
Kenyans know that what they are being offered has nothing to do with what they asked for. Why is it taking so long for people like Kombo, Kituyi, Wetangula and co to understand this simple fact? Instead some cowards have the evil mind to hire thugs particularly in Chwele, Wetangula’s neighbourhood, to attack people. This is what we have to stop.
The idea that one side will gain any ground in the campaign if they can disrupt the rally of the other side is just simply stupid. It doesn’t work and it is the source of all the violence. It has to be stopped. I want Mungatana to come to Bondo town and try telling those folks to forgo what they have struggled for and accept the aptly named “Wako Mongrel”. By the way it was my friend Miguna Miguna, a Toronto lawyer and a prolific political commentator who came up with that fitting name for that monstrosity from Wako.
I want Tuju who calls himself the “kiboko” for whipping errant politicians in Nyanza to come at least to Rarieda and tell his people about what is good with the Draft Constitution and not just how Kibaki fondly calls him “Ralph my son”.
As a matter of fact I think if we removed the abuses and futile violent attempts which are not helping anybody, we would have a very healthy and productive national debate across all communities in Kenya about what we need in a new constitution. The idea that the country is falling apart is neither here nor there. The skies are not falling all over Kenya.
It is just a few misguided politicians who have been abusing the masses ever since we elected them finally coming back to the people and realizing nobody has time for their nonsense. That is not a big deal. At least not for the people of Kenya. There is no need to panic at all, unless of course your name is Kiraitu Murungi, John Michuki, Murungaru, Kombo and other pretenders to the throne who keep lying to Kibaki that the whole country is behind the Wako Draft.
Lets keep the campaigns civil, stop worrying too much about peoples’ private parts, keep down the violence and enhance safety and security at rallies and we will have a very productive national discourse and referendum. It is important for the country. Kenyans need to speak and they need to do it now. The section of elites who have been contemptuous about the whole process should stop panicking and calling for postponement on basis of the elusive middle ground. The people of Kenya will determine the middle ground after the referendum.
Now a piece of advice for President Kibaki. I know you have been bombarded with requests, almost orders to fire the likes of Raila, Musyoka, Najib Balala, Ochilo Ayacko, Anyang’ Nyong’o and now we have Jebii Kilimo and God knows who is coming tomorrow. This must be a tough decision, considering it is coming from those who claim to be your protectors, God knows from what.
Now here are the options. You will lose the referendum that is almost a foregone conclusion now. What next? Yes, you have to fire some of your ministers. In fact you should dissolve the cabinet soon after the referendum results. That is the minimum.
The question is: Will you fire those who shall have dragged the country into a failed referendum and have been rejected by the people of Kenya or will you fire those who have stood firm with the Kenyan people as the referendum poll results are going to reveal? That really is the question you have to wrestle with Mr. President. My sense is you might need to hang on the coat tails of the winners at the referendum to get a little room to govern the country as opposed to sinking deeper with the losers. It is your call but you might want to start considering your options right now. The status quo cannot hold after the referendum.
Of course the political destiny of our country after the referendum will not be determined by what President Kibaki does and doesn’t do. The referendum will take that initiative away from the president’s hand. Where we go with the constitution from November 24 after the votes are in will lie squarely on the hands of the Kenyan people and the leadership formations that will emerge then. We have some very delicate and immediate issues to deal with.
Number one is to complete the constitutional review process. I am glad the general consensus seems to be that we have to go back to where Bomas left and sort our way from there. I think the referendum results are going to humble a lot of people and there is likely to be more respect and accommodation of the aspirations of the ordinary Kenyans as captured in the Bomas process. Of course we have to improve the Bomas Draft before we take it to the referendum.
I also think the supporters of the Bomas Draft shall have learnt the price of arrogance and being non-inclusive when they witness the demise of the arrogant State House crew who will flop at the referendum with all the money and resources they boast of. These are important lessons that are going to help us complete the constitutional process in the spirit of national cohesion and a common vision for what is good for the nation as opposed to what is good for those in power. Time will tell, but I am confident that the referendum is a new beginning that will lead us to the end of this journey. It cannot be an end in itself. Obviously.
The second question is what happens to the Kibaki government after they lose the referendum. The most practical thing would be for Kibaki to dissolve parliament and call for General Elections and bow out of politics with some honour. That won’t happen.
Technically Kibaki has the mandate to run the country till 2007. But let’s not forget that a NO vote means Kenyans will have rejected Kibaki’s vision for his country. A new constitution was supposed to be the single most significant gift and legacy Kibaki gave Kenyans.
After the referendum the promise of a new constitution will be the single most significant failure of the Kibaki regime. People who want to be simplistic can go ahead and say it is not the president’s fault. In fact they would go ahead and blame Raila and say this was just so that they can use the issue as a propaganda tool to campaign for the presidency. It really doesn’t matter.
The reality is that Kenyans are going to reject Kibaki’s attempt to manufacture a constitution for himself under the guise of giving Kenyans a new constitution. If Kibaki wanted to give Kenyans the constitution he promised us while campaigning for the presidency and not the one they cooked with Kiraitu and Nyachae after getting our votes, Kenyans would have had their constitution a long time ago and we would be busy doing other things today.
Kenyans rejecting the Kibaki Constitution will be the natural end of the Kibaki regime. He can prolong it. He can move gingerly to 2007, but it is really the end of the road and I think Kibaki should spend his remaining time in office building bridges to move the country to a new leadership. He has no other task more important than that. And by the way that new leadership will emerge from the grassroots just like we are seeing in the referendum not from State House. That is another lesson the referendum has in store for politicians.
On the lighter side of things the referendum campaign had its moments of comical relief last week. I want to give the Comedian of the Week Award in the referendum debate to the Minister for Internal Affairs John Michuki. He had some stiff competition, but the old man wins this hands down. I am referring to one of the biggest commando operations in the nation’s history which reportedly netted 18 Mungikists and their tools of trade in Kitengela, Nairobi.
First of all we had what the Standard Newspaper says looked like “TV clips from war-torn Iraq”
The crack Commando team were reported to be clad in night vision goggles, jet black uniforms, heavy arms and knives. And you thought the Mwenje/ Ndolo takedown was dramatic.
Inside the house after breaking the doors, the GSU squad found “flags, expensive leather seats, tobacco snuff, sheep dung, traditional brews, boiled fruits, a Kikuyu Christian Hymn book and a slaughtered sheep” Oh Yeah Michuki also said they seized nude photos of politicians who had gone to talk to Mungiki about the Referendum.
I suspect the politicians must have been pictured nude holding the Draft Constitution in one hand and something not so pleasant in the other hand. Anyhow Michuki has promised to unleash the pictures to the public. The nation waits.
Why do I find this comical?
Number one, it seems the government knew all along where the alleged Mungiki activities were taking place. What took them so long to swing into action and seize the offending “sheep dung” na kadhalika? Don’t we all just feel secure now?
My sense is that if Michuki and the Bumbling Musketeers at State House think they are going to win the Referendum by pinning Mungiki on the Orange Movement, they have a lot of work ahead of them.
I would suggest that when you are in the kind of trouble the Yes team find themselves in, you need more than Mungiki and nude photos to turn things around.
It is still a long way but my friends on the other side could do with some re-thinking. “This ain't working”, that should be their slogan right now.
One more thing before we give the Award to Michuki. Does anyone remember the letters Michuki is writing to the Chiefs, DCs, PCs promising them they will keep their jobs? To me it means someone is saying forget whatever constitution we will have tomorrow, we intend not to follow it. Michuki is saying they intend to break the law and only he knows how that is going to be done. Remember he told the Chiefs he is the one who knows what their job title will be called.
The big question is: If the government is breaking the law today, and they intend to break even more laws tomorrow, why do they still want us to vote for a constitution?
Finally, let me say something about the myth being spread by panicking Yes campaigners that if Kenyans reject the Kibaki/Wako Draft then we are doomed to be ruled by the same Kibaki under the current constitution which most Kenyans do not want. This is the latest fear campaign. Basically they are telling Kenyans our only choice is to decide how we want to be oppressed. We can choose oppression under the Wako Draft or we are being warned we will have the same under the old constitution.
No my friends by rejecting the Kibaki/Wako Draft, we are telling the powers that be that Kenyans have already rejected oppression altogether. Kenyans are not waiting for Kibaki or Raila to decide for us which constitution we need. Anyone who thinks Kenya will be the same after the referendum and Kibaki and the bumbling team at State House will just trudge along is eating too many bananas.
The victory that Kenyans will achieve at the referendum is a huge incremental, if you will, to our victory on Dec 2002. The people are marching forward and after November 21, 2005 we will be ready to say bye bye to our good friend Mwai Kibaki in that journey.
Like Moi, Kibaki will be destined to sit on the sidelines as the people of Kenyan move the nation forward. Kenyans will get the constitution they have been fighting for, that is for sure. We will be crazy to be waiting for Kibaki to help us get it. He has done everything to scuttle it. Kibaki will hang around for a while after the referendum. “Hang around” are the operative words.
Just one last thing. Am I the only one getting fed up with the smarties telling us the referendum debate is no longer about the constitution but rather about politics and power? How the heck are we supposed to talk about the constitution without talking about politics and power? Isn’t that what the constitution is all about?
The writer is a human rights activist
