Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 20, 2005 8:12:24 GMT 3
Voters are rising to reclaim their beloved nation
by Okech Kendo-Commentary in East African Standard, Thursday, October 20, 2005
Right-thinking observers know that citizens would never again be forced to dance to Lalaiyo, Ohangla, and Mugithi only for this nation has many tunes that need to give Kenya its ethnic and cultural diversity.
If politicians have not understood this then they are behind the times.
The people are ahead with a message: "We need our country back."
This message went out clearly during the 2002 General Election, and the people seem to be sending it again.
The more the people get conscious of their rights, the more desperate the power elite is in an astounding mix of reward, blackmail, and propaganda.
The officialdom is dangling the carrot and wielding the stick with equal vehemence. But so ill is the timing of some of these ‘policy’ declarations and reversals that there is no more regard for subtlety.
Councillors have just received a salary hike and a promise of free life insurance, but do not politicise the award. Councillors, we are told, do such a good job that they deserve this pampering, even if the cash comes from the local authorities transfer fund.
The agitation for better pay for councillors started long before Karisa Maitha died. As minister for local government, before he was moved to tourism, Maitha understood the need to pay councillors well.
Muskari Kombo, the minister for local government, has merely confirmed that the work of the Government must continue.
District officers and chiefs are supposed to have received written assurances that the Government would re-deploy them to the central government under a new name that only Internal Security minister, John Michuki knows. It is a secret weapon to have the administration vote with the ‘Government’. More districts will be created in Nakuru, Laikipia and Turkana, to bring administration closer to the people. It’s another Executive declaration in a dispensation that seeks to tame presidential powers to disrupt public expenditure without consultation.
With wananchi trying to reclaim the country it is yet to be seen if carrots would win. Already, some leaders of the Maa have said the community won’t trade its loyalty even with Amboseli National Park reverting to the Olkejuado County Council, via an Executive declaration.
Four months ago, squatters were kicked out of the Mau Forest, in circumstances that seemed environmentally logical. Now some cut lines have been identified and the dispossessed will return to the fringes of the water catchment.
The title deeds that were merely ‘pieces of paper’ have been recognised.
The timing is poignant and innuendoes of compromise are unavoidable. Now the Government is saying, through Lands Minister Amos Kimunya, this resettlement of a lot who were ruthlessly ejected, houses demolished and set aflame, churches and schools flattened, in an unparalleled brutality would be resettled.
The bitter citizens could return but no one is talking compensation. In turn, they are expected to endorse a constitution that gives the Executive the powers to build and to destroy, to uproot and to plant, to gazette and to de-gazette, just as did Prophet Jeremiah.
Conservationists – Born Free Foundation Kenya, affiliates across Europe and America, Human Society International, Pan-African Sanctuary Alliance Rainforest Concern, among many others – are outraged. They are in court, and there is a web site mobilising support for Amboseli.
The Executive orders at once contravened the Wildlife Act and compromised the gains in conservation. But Prof Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is yet to renounce this politically correct declaration but ecologically scandalous.
This political impudence to critics, or prudence to supporters, downgraded the world famous Amboseli National Park to a game reserve.
Now there is copycat reaction: Communities around game parks, including the Taita of Tsavo National Park, and the Maasai around Maasai Mara, want their lands, in a spiral that could disrupt the virginity of the African Safari.
The obvious but unstated assumption behind the declaration is that the Maasai would be flattered out of defiance of the Suswa Declaration.
Even communities always thought to be conservative and more likely to vote with the government, have the dexterity to defy historical assumptions.
Martha Karua’s appreciation of this reality captured the irony a month ago in Garissa.
"What is happening? We cannot even convince refugees to say ‘Banana!" The Minister for Water, who often walks with swag that belies status, is better placed to advise politicians that times are changing.
When it finally hits, as it is bound to sooner than expected, no reward or blackmail would convince the people out of their conviction.
With this consciousness the people – the true owners of the constitutional project – will not allow politicians of the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ conviction to impose a contract on them.
President Kibaki may be a gentleman as those who know him do say, but the constitution citizens want, is one that guarantees that institutions would be superior to individual whims.
If the rising consciousness seem to contradict the assumptions of the political class that’s too bad but the train has left the station of conformity.
But if the people’s aspirations coincide with the tendentious politics of the Orange rejectionists, that does not amount to approval. Whoever finds himself in State House from now on, would have to do what the people want.