Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 11, 2005 4:01:20 GMT 3
By Onyango Oloo
Two years ago I was practically cyber lynched when I began an essay with the following words:
"Speaking of 2007, I do not think that President Mwai Kibaki is going to see that year. In fact, let me say it out loud right now so that we can get over it and move on to the main purpose of this essay: Around 2005 (if not sooner) Kenya will be engulfed in mourning. Why? Mwai Kibaki will be a dead man. When I talk like this, some people get so upset, as if I will be personally responsible for his demise when and if it happens. Well, if you are going to shoot me, make sure you line me up next to the CNN weather forecaster who predicts the likelihood of heavy snow falling around Quebec City in mid- February. So what will kill our beloved head of state? Don’t ask me that. All I know is that it will be from natural causes."
SOURCE:
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=22&topic_id=30861&mesg_id=30861
Many of my most vicious critics were actually some of my closest friends and comrades- including one who asked caustically whether I had ceased being a political analyst to take up the rather dubious calling of a
sangoma.
You know, it was as if I had pointed my mouse at the President via the world wide web and killed him instantly with an email from Canada.
I know of dozens of Kenyans who are still grappling with severe bouts of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder unleashed by a single reading of that infamous 2003 essay- which incidentally was really about progressive Kenyans LOOKING BEYOND 2007, beyond the mainstream contestations for political power. One deranged anti-Oloo groupie set up his alternative counter- death watch dubbing it Dead Man Walking- a daily posting of confirmed sightings of the Kenyan president underscoring that Kibaki had once again “survived” living defiantly for another day to defy Oloo’s predictions. I kept reminding people that I had said Kibaki would be toast in 2005, not 2003 and certainly not 2004.
Well, I wrote my essay at that time and moved on.
I had wanted to convey widely known information that our President Mwai Kibaki was actually a very sick man indeed and that health assessment was based on the available information at that time indicating that the man was a complete goner- in fact I thought I was actually being "generous" by extending his life that long. More than that, I had wanted to challenge the MYTH that one was NOT supposed to imagine that the President, a mere mortal could actually drop dead one day- a holdover from the Njonjo scare tactics of the 1970s that lied to Kenyans that it was practically an act of treason to even think that a human being who happened to be the Kenyan head of state had an expiry date like practically any other human being.
Well, here we are in October 2005 and President Kibaki is very much alive. That is a good thing.
I am glad that he is bouncing around like a brand new baby.
Remember I said he was GOING TO DIE in 2005; I did NOT SAY that I WANTED HIM DEAD.
And to remind people of those weather analogies. When a meteorologist on CNN tells her viewers that Hurricane Katrina is likely to hit the city of New Orleans in four days, that weather forecaster is not rubbing their mikono with glee in delirious anticipation of the dour event. All they are telling their viewers is that based on their projections, this is likely to be the situation in location A or B or C because of this and that. When I wrote about President Kibaki I based my information on sources I have learnt to trust over the years. Barely a month after my controversial essay, there were front page stories in both Standard (December 2003) and Nation (January 2004) essentially repeating what I had stated in my essay in regards to some details of the President’s health.
I kicked off this essay with that flashback to my salad days as a Kenyan political sangoma because I wanted to, as it were, return to the mortuary in a manner of speaking.
I want to provide a POLITICAL OBITUARY of the Mwai Kibaki Administration.
Mark my words:
A Political Obituary as opposed to a LITERAL obituary.
What is an obituary?
Here is one explanation:
n: a notice of someone's death; usually includes a short biography.
And what is the meaning of the word “political”?
Here:
Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state.
Relating to, involving, or characteristic of politics or politicians;
So, if we take two definitions of these two words and merge them, we discover that a POLITICAL obituary is a notice of death that is " of, relating to, or dealing with the structure of government, politics or the state” or a political obituary could be “ relating to, involving the characteristics of politics and politicians."
What I am setting out this evening is to travel to the near future and give an assessment of the short-lived Kibaki-NAK regime.
I am going to be generous and assume that this andu aitu cabal will complete its five year term in the year 2007. Like I said, this is being extremely charitable.
Having said that, I want you to hop into my political time machine and travel with me to the future.
It is the year 2008 and one of my nephews who was 9 years old in the year 2005 wants me to help him with his civics homework.
He asks me: "Uncle, can you tell me something about the NAK- Kibaki government? How come it lasted for such a short time?"
So the following is what I am telling that hypothetical nephew in 2008:
The Kibaki-NAK regime came to power in December 2002. That year, millions upon millions of Kenyans came together to end the 40 year dictatorship of the former ruling party KANU. That year all the major opposition parties with the exception of Simeon Nyachae’s FORD-People put aside all their differences and threw all their support behind Mwai Kibaki, a former Vice-President under Daniel arap Moi and leader of the Official Opposition in a grand coalition called the National Rainbow Coalition. To be sure, it was really the wananchi who forced the various opposition chieftains to come together. In electing Mwai Kibaki and National Rainbow Coalition to power, the Kenyan voters expected in return that the new government would honour their election pledge of passing a new democratic constitution within their first 100 days in power; create at least 500,000 jobs a year; promote gender parity, equality and sensitivity in national life; integrate the youth in development; map out an independent foreign policy; prosecute the Goldenberg and ethnic clashes culprits; set up a Truth and Justice commission, promote national unity; combat corruption and minimize any manifestations of racial, religious or ethnic intolerance.
On almost all counts, the new regime reneged on their lofty promises. The first thing that happened that the DP core of the NAK faction organized an internal coup against their LDP coalition partners- manifested through political appointments that betrayed a propensity for cronyism and according to many Kenyan observers, tribalism in flagrant violation of a written power sharing memorandum of understanding signed before a Nairobi lawyer in October 2002. Within weeks of the government coming to power NARC was already on the onslaught against thousands of workers who were demanding better pay and working conditions. Women quickly noticed that the new regime did not venture beyond cosmetic moves and the youth witnessed a recycling of incompetent deadwood at a time when highly educated Kenyans were tarmacking and starving in the unemployment ranks. Even though the new government made a flourish of announcing “free primary education” many Kenyan parents found themselves forking out MORE money in hidden and not so hidden costs even as the schools were stretched to breaking point by the unplanned upsurge of thousands of pupils who had dropped out of school because of lack of school fees. Kenyans abroad waited in vain for clear policy directions from the new government about how they could be integrated in national renewal.
Former political prisoners, human rights defenders and others in the civil society sector noticed the cynical photo-ops outside Nyayo House followed by exactly NO MOVEMENT towards setting up the proposed Truth and Justice commission- they were astounded when an alleged former torturer was appointed an assistant minister in the new government and another promoted to head the country’s national security intelligence network.
All this foot- dragging may have been excused and perhaps even forgiven if the government had made some headway in some two key areas- fighting corruption and completing the constitutional review process.
On the first front, after a few months populated by populist pronouncements and symbolic gestures such as the presumed "clean up of the Judiciary" it was clear to many Kenyans that the Kibaki- NAK regime was not only turning a blind eye to grand graft- more and more it was getting up to its neck in the muck. There were loud whispers about the return of the cowboy contractors; a prominent Goldenberg villain was rewarded with a key ministry while another one implicated in the ethnic clashes was invited to head another ministry. Other scandals soon followed- Anglo-Leasing, La Ruegate, overnight billionaire cabinet ministers stashing away three quarters of a million in overseas accounts, waivers from one minister to another and the resumption of Toa Kitu Kubwa kick backs in the upper echelons of the regime…when these matters reached the public domain, the new head of state adamantly and defiantly stood by his accused ministers asking famously whose goat one of his underlings had eaten. By the time one of his closest aides was hit with an embarrassing international travel ban, the President’s internationally respected anti-corruption czar was seeking sanctuary in Europe fearing for his life.
By far the biggest let down of the regime was the utter refusal to acquiesce to the popular demand for a national democratic constitution- and this, after the ebullient and effusive pledges on the campaign trail; this, after an expensive national conference bringing together over six hundred delegates representing literally thousands upon thousands of communities drawn from each and every location in the country had actually cobbled together a draft of a new constitution which represented a national democratic consensus even as it retained troubling concessions to the religious right and social conservatives- like the Operation Rescue “life begins at conception” controversial credo and a homophobic shut out of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people from the bill of rights.
It soon became apparent that the foot- dragging was spurred on by a closing of the ranks of certain elite elements of the comprador and petit-bourgeois elements anxious to consolidate their power through very parochial and tribally inclined coalitions- in sharp contrast to the national democratic mandate that had swept them to power a mere two and a half years previously.
In the most bizarre twist of all, the ailing President opted to import opposition MPs who had actually campaigned against him to undercut hard working and dedicated ministers who had criss-crossed the country railing against the ancien regime and appealing for people to vote for the very President who would later allow himself to be pitted against his most ardent defenders in the run up to the elections which catapulted him to power. A particularly low point was watermarked when a former financier and back room schemer of DP who had bolted to KANU was lured back into a cabinet position with a very vague description. Even more surreal was the ascendancy of a minor and aging opposition politician who moved from leading a coalition dedicated to the ouster of the NARC regime to becoming the potty mouthed tribal minded and sexist propagandist of the NAK faction during their disastrous referendum campaign.
Each of the three neo-colonial regimes has experienced a turning point beyond which they were unable to contain the rising democratic anger of the wananchi. With Kenyatta it was the grisly killing of JM Kariuki and its aftermath in March 1975- henceforth Mzee Kenyatta vegetated in his dotage as a lame-duck ceremonial President as his aides jockeyed for power in a succession tango that preceded his own timely demise by at least three years. With Moi it was the equally barbaric torture/gangland style execution of the charismatic Foreign Minister Dr Robert Ouko- who ironically was a lap dog and abject sycophant of the very head of state who refused to lift a finger as powerful forces in the cabinet moved swiftly to destroy what they saw as an alternative successor groomed for power by some Western powers. Yet within a year and half of Ouko’s murder, massive democratic countrywide mobilization had forced the recalcitrant somewhat paranoid micro-manager in the State House to agree to the relegalization of political pluralism in the country. Even though he hung on to power for another decade- it was a tumultuous ten years punctuated by the further opening of democratic space and reflected in two elections- 1992 and 1997- when Kenyans voted 3 to 1 against the dictatorship but missed out on the Presidential jackpot because of the opposition splitting the vote among several candidates with definite constituencies which on their own could not challenge the unfair advantages if incumbency.
With the NAK-Kibaki ruling clique, the Achilles’ heel turned out to be the Wako Mongrel conjured up by the country’s Attorney General holed up in a luxurious coastal carven together with hand picked drafters who savaged the Zero Draft unanimously accepted and ratified at the conclusion of the Bomas process- replacing it with a mockery that planted the building blocks of an unaccountable and opaque imperial presidency. In a verification of the truism that many people speak their minds when their backs are against the wall or they are angry or both- it became crystal clear that the chief ideologues of the NAK regime had an empty tank as they tried to steer their Banana Bus through what was increasingly Orange flavoured rural expense and urban neighbourhoods. The resort to crude tribalism, fear mongering, state terror, lies, pork barrel politics and other elements of American style smear campaigns led to a nationwide backlash as even former stalwarts jumped quickly from what was clearly a vehicle whose imminent destination was an East African waterloo.
Sadly the devious pandering to some of the worst ethnic stereotypes only made matters worse for the beleaguered regime. Towards the end, a crackdown on the dreaded Mungiki sect far from winning brownie points for the harried ruling faction only made the opposing Orange team to make inroads into what had been assumed to be fortified barb wire fenced Banana plantations.
Like a collapsing house of cards, the NAK team watched listlessly as rallies in their presumed strongholds of Banana Hill and Limuru were infiltrated and taken over by better organized Orange campaigners who planned and executed very embarrassing mass walk outs from presumably “triumphant” Banana rallies.
By the time the Referendum rolled around the NAK faction had painted itself into a corner. They could hardly back out of a referendum that their opponents had tried to stop in court- with the NAK friendly Chief Justice openly using partisan delaying tactics. Tempting as it was, they could not use the violent and repressive methods of the former KANU dictatorship because the culture of open democratic dissent had taken root in the country- from open rebellion in the cabinet to mass anti-government rallies all over the country. Because of its earlier brutal suppression of the civil servants strike and the careless remarks about PCs, DCs, Chiefs and their assistants, the NAK woke up to their worst nightmare- not even their own government employees could be relied on to peddle the increasingly rotting poisoned bananas. Also as a result of political amateurism the NAK ideologues had allowed themselves to be isolated from their natural allies- the donor community who were even more anxious than some of the government ministers for the West friendly political and economic reforms to work. Instead in a display of shocking and misplaced braggadocio the Nairobi neo-colonial Talibans thought they could do a Mugabe and do a Zimbabwe by PRETENDING to take an "“anti-imperialist stance against Washington and Whitehall". But there was no way this coterie of former golf club managers, ambitious pharmacists, ruby smugglers, brewers, technocrats, government lawyers, telephone farmers, drug dealers, teen hooker clients, Anglo-Leasing linked fraudsters and billionaire bigamists could look remotely credible as the modern day incarnation of Kenyan Che Guevara and Chairman Mao. Besides at least Mugabe used for his own cynical reasons demagogic pandering to land occupations and other politically motivated land reforms. In Kenya the Kibaki regime was stacked by elements who represented the country’s major land owners and who were in tandem with the major land grabbers despite the fact that some of the major land owners and land grabbers were also to be found in the Orange camp. The clearest examples of the shoddiness of the fake anti-imperialism was the shocking nolle prosequi entered by the Attorney General even after a scion of the power White Kenyan settler family of Delamare had admitted in writing that he shot a government officer to death; the other illustration is the reluctance of the government to implement the recommendations of the Ndung’u Land Commission.
One of the saddest signs that NAK’ s end indeed was nigh was the overt ethnic chauvinism of former human rights advocates, detainees and exiles who seem to have taken leave of their democratic common sense to bask in the fake comfort provided by the myopic cocoon of shaky ethnic solidarity.
So how did the Kibaki-NAK regime finally collapse after the 2005 Referendum?
Well, that is a story for another day.
Onyango Oloo
Toronto
Two years ago I was practically cyber lynched when I began an essay with the following words:
"Speaking of 2007, I do not think that President Mwai Kibaki is going to see that year. In fact, let me say it out loud right now so that we can get over it and move on to the main purpose of this essay: Around 2005 (if not sooner) Kenya will be engulfed in mourning. Why? Mwai Kibaki will be a dead man. When I talk like this, some people get so upset, as if I will be personally responsible for his demise when and if it happens. Well, if you are going to shoot me, make sure you line me up next to the CNN weather forecaster who predicts the likelihood of heavy snow falling around Quebec City in mid- February. So what will kill our beloved head of state? Don’t ask me that. All I know is that it will be from natural causes."
SOURCE:
www.mashada.com/forums/index.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=22&topic_id=30861&mesg_id=30861
Many of my most vicious critics were actually some of my closest friends and comrades- including one who asked caustically whether I had ceased being a political analyst to take up the rather dubious calling of a
sangoma.
You know, it was as if I had pointed my mouse at the President via the world wide web and killed him instantly with an email from Canada.
I know of dozens of Kenyans who are still grappling with severe bouts of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder unleashed by a single reading of that infamous 2003 essay- which incidentally was really about progressive Kenyans LOOKING BEYOND 2007, beyond the mainstream contestations for political power. One deranged anti-Oloo groupie set up his alternative counter- death watch dubbing it Dead Man Walking- a daily posting of confirmed sightings of the Kenyan president underscoring that Kibaki had once again “survived” living defiantly for another day to defy Oloo’s predictions. I kept reminding people that I had said Kibaki would be toast in 2005, not 2003 and certainly not 2004.
Well, I wrote my essay at that time and moved on.
I had wanted to convey widely known information that our President Mwai Kibaki was actually a very sick man indeed and that health assessment was based on the available information at that time indicating that the man was a complete goner- in fact I thought I was actually being "generous" by extending his life that long. More than that, I had wanted to challenge the MYTH that one was NOT supposed to imagine that the President, a mere mortal could actually drop dead one day- a holdover from the Njonjo scare tactics of the 1970s that lied to Kenyans that it was practically an act of treason to even think that a human being who happened to be the Kenyan head of state had an expiry date like practically any other human being.
Well, here we are in October 2005 and President Kibaki is very much alive. That is a good thing.
I am glad that he is bouncing around like a brand new baby.
Remember I said he was GOING TO DIE in 2005; I did NOT SAY that I WANTED HIM DEAD.
And to remind people of those weather analogies. When a meteorologist on CNN tells her viewers that Hurricane Katrina is likely to hit the city of New Orleans in four days, that weather forecaster is not rubbing their mikono with glee in delirious anticipation of the dour event. All they are telling their viewers is that based on their projections, this is likely to be the situation in location A or B or C because of this and that. When I wrote about President Kibaki I based my information on sources I have learnt to trust over the years. Barely a month after my controversial essay, there were front page stories in both Standard (December 2003) and Nation (January 2004) essentially repeating what I had stated in my essay in regards to some details of the President’s health.
I kicked off this essay with that flashback to my salad days as a Kenyan political sangoma because I wanted to, as it were, return to the mortuary in a manner of speaking.
I want to provide a POLITICAL OBITUARY of the Mwai Kibaki Administration.
Mark my words:
A Political Obituary as opposed to a LITERAL obituary.
What is an obituary?
Here is one explanation:
n: a notice of someone's death; usually includes a short biography.
And what is the meaning of the word “political”?
Here:
Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state.
Relating to, involving, or characteristic of politics or politicians;
So, if we take two definitions of these two words and merge them, we discover that a POLITICAL obituary is a notice of death that is " of, relating to, or dealing with the structure of government, politics or the state” or a political obituary could be “ relating to, involving the characteristics of politics and politicians."
What I am setting out this evening is to travel to the near future and give an assessment of the short-lived Kibaki-NAK regime.
I am going to be generous and assume that this andu aitu cabal will complete its five year term in the year 2007. Like I said, this is being extremely charitable.
Having said that, I want you to hop into my political time machine and travel with me to the future.
It is the year 2008 and one of my nephews who was 9 years old in the year 2005 wants me to help him with his civics homework.
He asks me: "Uncle, can you tell me something about the NAK- Kibaki government? How come it lasted for such a short time?"
So the following is what I am telling that hypothetical nephew in 2008:
The Kibaki-NAK regime came to power in December 2002. That year, millions upon millions of Kenyans came together to end the 40 year dictatorship of the former ruling party KANU. That year all the major opposition parties with the exception of Simeon Nyachae’s FORD-People put aside all their differences and threw all their support behind Mwai Kibaki, a former Vice-President under Daniel arap Moi and leader of the Official Opposition in a grand coalition called the National Rainbow Coalition. To be sure, it was really the wananchi who forced the various opposition chieftains to come together. In electing Mwai Kibaki and National Rainbow Coalition to power, the Kenyan voters expected in return that the new government would honour their election pledge of passing a new democratic constitution within their first 100 days in power; create at least 500,000 jobs a year; promote gender parity, equality and sensitivity in national life; integrate the youth in development; map out an independent foreign policy; prosecute the Goldenberg and ethnic clashes culprits; set up a Truth and Justice commission, promote national unity; combat corruption and minimize any manifestations of racial, religious or ethnic intolerance.
On almost all counts, the new regime reneged on their lofty promises. The first thing that happened that the DP core of the NAK faction organized an internal coup against their LDP coalition partners- manifested through political appointments that betrayed a propensity for cronyism and according to many Kenyan observers, tribalism in flagrant violation of a written power sharing memorandum of understanding signed before a Nairobi lawyer in October 2002. Within weeks of the government coming to power NARC was already on the onslaught against thousands of workers who were demanding better pay and working conditions. Women quickly noticed that the new regime did not venture beyond cosmetic moves and the youth witnessed a recycling of incompetent deadwood at a time when highly educated Kenyans were tarmacking and starving in the unemployment ranks. Even though the new government made a flourish of announcing “free primary education” many Kenyan parents found themselves forking out MORE money in hidden and not so hidden costs even as the schools were stretched to breaking point by the unplanned upsurge of thousands of pupils who had dropped out of school because of lack of school fees. Kenyans abroad waited in vain for clear policy directions from the new government about how they could be integrated in national renewal.
Former political prisoners, human rights defenders and others in the civil society sector noticed the cynical photo-ops outside Nyayo House followed by exactly NO MOVEMENT towards setting up the proposed Truth and Justice commission- they were astounded when an alleged former torturer was appointed an assistant minister in the new government and another promoted to head the country’s national security intelligence network.
All this foot- dragging may have been excused and perhaps even forgiven if the government had made some headway in some two key areas- fighting corruption and completing the constitutional review process.
On the first front, after a few months populated by populist pronouncements and symbolic gestures such as the presumed "clean up of the Judiciary" it was clear to many Kenyans that the Kibaki- NAK regime was not only turning a blind eye to grand graft- more and more it was getting up to its neck in the muck. There were loud whispers about the return of the cowboy contractors; a prominent Goldenberg villain was rewarded with a key ministry while another one implicated in the ethnic clashes was invited to head another ministry. Other scandals soon followed- Anglo-Leasing, La Ruegate, overnight billionaire cabinet ministers stashing away three quarters of a million in overseas accounts, waivers from one minister to another and the resumption of Toa Kitu Kubwa kick backs in the upper echelons of the regime…when these matters reached the public domain, the new head of state adamantly and defiantly stood by his accused ministers asking famously whose goat one of his underlings had eaten. By the time one of his closest aides was hit with an embarrassing international travel ban, the President’s internationally respected anti-corruption czar was seeking sanctuary in Europe fearing for his life.
By far the biggest let down of the regime was the utter refusal to acquiesce to the popular demand for a national democratic constitution- and this, after the ebullient and effusive pledges on the campaign trail; this, after an expensive national conference bringing together over six hundred delegates representing literally thousands upon thousands of communities drawn from each and every location in the country had actually cobbled together a draft of a new constitution which represented a national democratic consensus even as it retained troubling concessions to the religious right and social conservatives- like the Operation Rescue “life begins at conception” controversial credo and a homophobic shut out of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people from the bill of rights.
It soon became apparent that the foot- dragging was spurred on by a closing of the ranks of certain elite elements of the comprador and petit-bourgeois elements anxious to consolidate their power through very parochial and tribally inclined coalitions- in sharp contrast to the national democratic mandate that had swept them to power a mere two and a half years previously.
In the most bizarre twist of all, the ailing President opted to import opposition MPs who had actually campaigned against him to undercut hard working and dedicated ministers who had criss-crossed the country railing against the ancien regime and appealing for people to vote for the very President who would later allow himself to be pitted against his most ardent defenders in the run up to the elections which catapulted him to power. A particularly low point was watermarked when a former financier and back room schemer of DP who had bolted to KANU was lured back into a cabinet position with a very vague description. Even more surreal was the ascendancy of a minor and aging opposition politician who moved from leading a coalition dedicated to the ouster of the NARC regime to becoming the potty mouthed tribal minded and sexist propagandist of the NAK faction during their disastrous referendum campaign.
Each of the three neo-colonial regimes has experienced a turning point beyond which they were unable to contain the rising democratic anger of the wananchi. With Kenyatta it was the grisly killing of JM Kariuki and its aftermath in March 1975- henceforth Mzee Kenyatta vegetated in his dotage as a lame-duck ceremonial President as his aides jockeyed for power in a succession tango that preceded his own timely demise by at least three years. With Moi it was the equally barbaric torture/gangland style execution of the charismatic Foreign Minister Dr Robert Ouko- who ironically was a lap dog and abject sycophant of the very head of state who refused to lift a finger as powerful forces in the cabinet moved swiftly to destroy what they saw as an alternative successor groomed for power by some Western powers. Yet within a year and half of Ouko’s murder, massive democratic countrywide mobilization had forced the recalcitrant somewhat paranoid micro-manager in the State House to agree to the relegalization of political pluralism in the country. Even though he hung on to power for another decade- it was a tumultuous ten years punctuated by the further opening of democratic space and reflected in two elections- 1992 and 1997- when Kenyans voted 3 to 1 against the dictatorship but missed out on the Presidential jackpot because of the opposition splitting the vote among several candidates with definite constituencies which on their own could not challenge the unfair advantages if incumbency.
With the NAK-Kibaki ruling clique, the Achilles’ heel turned out to be the Wako Mongrel conjured up by the country’s Attorney General holed up in a luxurious coastal carven together with hand picked drafters who savaged the Zero Draft unanimously accepted and ratified at the conclusion of the Bomas process- replacing it with a mockery that planted the building blocks of an unaccountable and opaque imperial presidency. In a verification of the truism that many people speak their minds when their backs are against the wall or they are angry or both- it became crystal clear that the chief ideologues of the NAK regime had an empty tank as they tried to steer their Banana Bus through what was increasingly Orange flavoured rural expense and urban neighbourhoods. The resort to crude tribalism, fear mongering, state terror, lies, pork barrel politics and other elements of American style smear campaigns led to a nationwide backlash as even former stalwarts jumped quickly from what was clearly a vehicle whose imminent destination was an East African waterloo.
Sadly the devious pandering to some of the worst ethnic stereotypes only made matters worse for the beleaguered regime. Towards the end, a crackdown on the dreaded Mungiki sect far from winning brownie points for the harried ruling faction only made the opposing Orange team to make inroads into what had been assumed to be fortified barb wire fenced Banana plantations.
Like a collapsing house of cards, the NAK team watched listlessly as rallies in their presumed strongholds of Banana Hill and Limuru were infiltrated and taken over by better organized Orange campaigners who planned and executed very embarrassing mass walk outs from presumably “triumphant” Banana rallies.
By the time the Referendum rolled around the NAK faction had painted itself into a corner. They could hardly back out of a referendum that their opponents had tried to stop in court- with the NAK friendly Chief Justice openly using partisan delaying tactics. Tempting as it was, they could not use the violent and repressive methods of the former KANU dictatorship because the culture of open democratic dissent had taken root in the country- from open rebellion in the cabinet to mass anti-government rallies all over the country. Because of its earlier brutal suppression of the civil servants strike and the careless remarks about PCs, DCs, Chiefs and their assistants, the NAK woke up to their worst nightmare- not even their own government employees could be relied on to peddle the increasingly rotting poisoned bananas. Also as a result of political amateurism the NAK ideologues had allowed themselves to be isolated from their natural allies- the donor community who were even more anxious than some of the government ministers for the West friendly political and economic reforms to work. Instead in a display of shocking and misplaced braggadocio the Nairobi neo-colonial Talibans thought they could do a Mugabe and do a Zimbabwe by PRETENDING to take an "“anti-imperialist stance against Washington and Whitehall". But there was no way this coterie of former golf club managers, ambitious pharmacists, ruby smugglers, brewers, technocrats, government lawyers, telephone farmers, drug dealers, teen hooker clients, Anglo-Leasing linked fraudsters and billionaire bigamists could look remotely credible as the modern day incarnation of Kenyan Che Guevara and Chairman Mao. Besides at least Mugabe used for his own cynical reasons demagogic pandering to land occupations and other politically motivated land reforms. In Kenya the Kibaki regime was stacked by elements who represented the country’s major land owners and who were in tandem with the major land grabbers despite the fact that some of the major land owners and land grabbers were also to be found in the Orange camp. The clearest examples of the shoddiness of the fake anti-imperialism was the shocking nolle prosequi entered by the Attorney General even after a scion of the power White Kenyan settler family of Delamare had admitted in writing that he shot a government officer to death; the other illustration is the reluctance of the government to implement the recommendations of the Ndung’u Land Commission.
One of the saddest signs that NAK’ s end indeed was nigh was the overt ethnic chauvinism of former human rights advocates, detainees and exiles who seem to have taken leave of their democratic common sense to bask in the fake comfort provided by the myopic cocoon of shaky ethnic solidarity.
So how did the Kibaki-NAK regime finally collapse after the 2005 Referendum?
Well, that is a story for another day.
Onyango Oloo
Toronto
