Post by adongo12345 on Nov 10, 2005 19:24:20 GMT 3
By Adongo Ogony
I am not talking about the wild animals that President Kibaki sold to the Thai PM to take to the zoos in Thailand.
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If you asked me I would have preferred if the president had sent some of those politicians around him, particularly some in his kitchen cabinet to Thailand for free instead of hawking our priceless wildlife heritage for pocket change. But seriously, some of the political crooks and outright swindlers messing the affairs of our country belong in a zoo somewhere. Thailand would be a good start. I am sure there are a lot of bananas and may be even oranges in those zoos. Anyway I intend to talk about something else.
What I mean by our country being on sale is within the political frontier as we approach our date with history. We are on the last lap of a historic race and battle to define our nation for ourselves, for our children, for our communities and for a beautiful nation called Kenya. This battle has pitted a cynical mafia type regime against the very citizens who elected them with unprecedented enthusiasm only three years ago to replace a dictatorship that had tormented the people of Kenya for decades and against whom the people fought with bare hands and won.
Finally the mythical Wanjiku with real legs, real arms and a brain of her own will walk calmly to the voting booth, we hope, and say Yes or No to the Wako Treachery, called the Proposed New Constitution. It can’t get any better than that, can it? I tell you the benefits of democracy are many. But what happened to fair play in national affairs of the magnitude our country is experiencing?
The Orange team would want to believe they are like Paul Tergat in the last one hundred metres of the recently concluded and very exciting New York marathon, with South African Hendrik Ramaala marshalling every last ounce of energy in him to overtake the legendary Kenyan runner before the finish line.
Paul Tergat triumphed much to the joy of millions of Kenyans, but Ramaala of course had to rely on his own skills and energy. He couldn’t buy the folks on the sidelines to run a few steps for him as he took a rest, he couldn’t ask the New York Police to give Tergat a hit on the head to slow him down. The poor fellow couldn’t even buy the organizers to move the finish line backwards for his benefit. Ndugu Ramaala lost to a better athlete in a fair race.
The referendum battle in Kenya, as important as it is to the nation and its future is anything but fair. The crooks in government have basically gone bananas. President Kibaki himself is going wires to win the referendum. Nothing is sacred any more.
A few days ago in Canada we had one of North Americas weird kids pass time activities known as the Halloween which takes place on the last day of October. During the Halloween evening kids go for something called “Trick or Treat”. For me that meant standing at the door of my house with a box of candies for waves and waves of kids most of them encouraged by my son to come to the door and declare “Trick or Treat” while dressed in almost devilish outfit meant to scare the crap out of people. The idea is that if you give the kids candy they will go away in peace and wish you well, if you don’t they are supposed to skin you alive (metaphorically). The candies worked just fine for me. I was a few dollars short, but nothing to send me to the bankruptcy office.
President Kibaki it seems is having the largest Halloween “Trick or Treat” party ever in the tortured history of our nation. All for the purposes of winning the referendum, it seems. Mzee is literally standing at the door of State House not just in Nairobi but also in Nakuru, Mombasa and God knows they may soon start cleaning the cobwebs at State Lodge Kisumu to allow Raphael Tuju to herd a few broke politicians in there for the goodies. Anyhow our Mtukufu Rais is loaded with candies as long as you come in eating a banana. And w e thought all Kenyans pay taxes.
The toys Mzee is dishing out include whole districts curved out of nowhere to give Kibaki supporters something to confuse the people with. Universities are also available at the right price, never mind that our national universities are becoming alleyway learning institutions with no resources and limited capacity to do what they are supposed to do best, namely produce and disseminate knowledge at the highest level. Of course the banana leaders need money to do the necessary.
Let me say something about the real consequences of arbitrarily minted districts being dished by the President. Number one there is no problem having new districts wherever that is determined to be necessary. Number two there is already a process underway to achieve that goal. Why the political interference from State House? The big issue though is that in the proposed political dispensation in the Wako Draft, the districts are actually centres of power as devolved from the Central Government. As well the Wako Draft requires a president to win in at least 50% of the districts. This means if one individual has a control on how many districts we can have and where, then that someone has control of the whole country single handedly. That would be pathetic, wouldn’t it? That is what somebody wants Kenya to look like.
If we were dealing with a genuine and serious constitutional making process rather than the hocus pocus games from State House, the 71 districts existing at the time of the new constitution would be making a political and constitutional pact on how they want to govern themselves, govern the affairs of the nation and share its resources equitably for the overall good of one and all. They would have to create a fair mechanism of how new districts that will have equal powers with them would be created thereafter. That is the cardinal bond between devolved powers.
In Canada for example we have the provinces as the first and most significant tier of devolved authority in the land. There are eight provinces. It would be absurd if the Prime Minister of Canada would just wake up one morning and cut Ontario Province into four saying it is too big. It would be outright insane if the same PM actually needed a certain number of provinces to be in power. Same with George Bush. He can’t cut Texas into five States to help him win elections. Can you imagine what the politics of the United States would be if the president could just manufacture states the way Kibaki wants to manufacture districts to achieve political ends?
What happens tomorrow if we have Otieno Kajwang as our president and he wants to turn Mbita into twenty districts? What do we do? That really is the problem but we know the rapid creation of districts today is just simply part and parcel of the massive corruption in every aspect of governance in the country.
When Kiraitu warned us that the Yes team will use government resources to finance the Banana campaign people grumbled and expressed outrage. Today the President himself is raiding our national assets and some people want to call it the power of incumbency. This is public theft, simple and is up there with the Goldenberg scum as a tragic development in the way the leaders run the affairs of the nation.
I am bewildered that when the KNCHR, whose leadership and membership mean a lot to me and to other human rights activists issued its list of those they intend to prosecute for abuse of office and use of public resources to prop up partisan interests on the constitutional referendum campaign, the name Emilio Mwai Kibaki, President and Head of State of the Republic of Kenya was not there. I know he is above the law as head of state, but is he also above the law as a leader of a political party and individual member of the same be it NAK,DP, Narc etc, to actually defraud the nation to finance a political project however noble the cause? I don't think so.
Nowhere did we hear about the activities of the media proclaimed "Narc Activist"
Mary Wambui, God knows what she was doing before "Narc" came to power. Certainly she was NOT traveling with taxpayer and state provided security services, tons and gunias of food aid, medical supplies and cash for those who would promise to be Banana voters. Surely there must be a limit to the wacky politics of imperial presidency, exercised even by remote relatives and/or partners of the elites in power. National resources should never be usurped as personal property of those in power and their associates. That is the definition of corruption in high places.
If Kibaki wants to run the government through “roadside decisions” that is his problem, but he has no business using national resources for his partisan political project. Whether Kibaki likes it or not, a banana campaign is not a government project. It is actually a DP project and they have lured a few lost leaders here and there who are having nightmares with their own constituencies. Why is Ngilu not campaigning? No, it is not because she is “ a temperamental woman” upset about something as someone was trying to say. She is a realist. She can see the earth is not flat. My point is that Kibaki should go out there and campaign for his Bananas but please leave our Treasury and resources behind. Nobody can buy the dignity of a nation. You cannot buy the conscience of the people of Kenya, not with their own land. Let’s stop this madness now.
And then there is the case of salaries for Chiefs. Why is the government buying the chiefs with awesome salary increases which anybody would love to have. Listen, some of my relatives are chiefs and I would be the happiest person for them to get what they deserve.
There are two aspects to this “Chief Buying” saga we need to focus on. One is that the actual vote from the chiefs would make absolutely no difference to the Yes team. What does this mean? For sure we know the government is not buying the votes from the chiefs-it is useless. What the government is trying to buy from the chiefs is their ability to influence the vote.
Historically (Chiefs and Provincial Administration) have corrupted, robbed and help rig elections in more ways than one. Most of the times it involved simple political thuggery by the state to terrorize voters and the populace; Chiefs often use the police and the AP’s to direct traffic on voting days and intimidate people, particularly in the rural areas. That is not going to work. Smart chiefs are going to take their money and shut up, and follow what the Wananchi are doing. This is what has happened throughout the referendum campaign. Leaders are listening to the voices of their own constituents and those who are not are having some problems. That really has been the magic of the referendum campaign.
The other aspect of the “Chief Buying” technique of the Yes crew is that this guys could just be plain nasty and totally uncaring. We know the country as a whole and civil service in particular is already undergoing deep retrenchments to attract foreign loans and investment. Most of the folks don’t even get their money until years later, if they do.
The government is going to offload a huge part of those on its payroll whether you vote Yes or No. How about if some brilliant chap in the Yes “Stink Tank” came up with the idea: Lets give the chiefs big bucks, they get our back and six months from now they are history by law? Wouldn’t that be fun? And who would have the last laugh? Not the unemployed “Chief” for sure.
The irony of it all is that the chiefs may very well have the last laugh, of course at a big expense to the Kenyan taxpayer A No vote means the Chiefs’ jobs are intact and no body is going to touch their presidential gift, even with a long stick. Don’t forget the first thing our 9th Parliament did was to increase the salaries and benefits of all MPs to make them instant millionaires in a country where close to 60% live below the poverty line. This parliament has no moral right to reject any salary increases anywhere in the civil service. So the chiefs will have their money. The question is, will they have their jobs?
I don’t want to speculate at the probabilities but the chiefs know they are better off without Wako. The odds are the chiefs are going to be either neutral or support what is popular around them. It would appear to me that the Yes team in the “Chief Buying” strategy can only purchase neutrality not support except for those they already have. It is not going to achieve much, but at least someone is trying.
I was amused the other day to hear people still telling Kibaki to be neutral and “above” partisan interests. The Catholic Church a week ago asked the president to stay above the referendum debate. Where the heck have they been or who are they kidding? At least Kibaki has been upfront about his partisan position as the leader of a political interest group (DP) and I think it is a good thing as opposed to a few cowards who have taken a stand they are too afraid to declare to the nation.
One more thing. We have been told that the salary increases the government is announcing to buy votes have not been provided for in the respective budgets. It reminds me of the infamous story of a Moi Kanu 2002 leader in Ukambani who placed electricity poles all over promising Wananchi instant power, only to sneak back to collect all the poles after the elections.
I agree with those who say eat the money they are throwing around and take the goodies but defend the nation come referendum day. If these guys can play loose and fast with our money and resources the way we have seen to buy this Wako thing, it must really mean a lot to them.
If the Wako Constitution was good for Kenyans they wouldn’t be buying us to vote for it. One thing Kenyans know is that as soon as politicians get what they want, their first duty is to recover the money they spent to get it. The Bananas are throwing out the kitchen sink to get Wako Constitution, they are sure going to need it to recover the cash and loot even more. They must be stopped and the time is now. Let’s tell Kibaki and everybody else loudly and clearly that our country is not for sale. That should be our vote on Monday November 21, 2005. Put a NO SALE sign on your conscience and defend your country. Future generations will thank you for it.
By the way, I don’t know yet, what to make of the pending High Court ruling on the referendum coming down on Tuesday barely a week before the referendum. My sense is that the judges will reject the application and hide behind the fact that Kenyans will have a final say at the referendum even though the Draft was written by a select bunch of friends.
If the judges were to rule in favour of the applicants and stop the referendum, it would save Kiraitu and company from a humiliating defeat, but that is very unlikely. The real legal hurdle for the Kibaki constitution is with Section 47 and that only comes into play if the Draft is passed.
As it is I am confident Kenyans are going to throw out the Wako garbage and bring back to earth the runaway Kibaki presidency and then we can do things properly and get a new constitution for the nation. I don’t think much can be done to salvage the nation until we deal with the extremists who hijacked the Kibaki regime from the people who elected the government on December 27, 2002. A NO VOTE on November 21, 2005 is just down payment towards ending political dictatorship in the country. But it is a good start and a solid investment in the future of Kenya.
The writer is a human rights activist
I am not talking about the wild animals that President Kibaki sold to the Thai PM to take to the zoos in Thailand.
img]If you asked me I would have preferred if the president had sent some of those politicians around him, particularly some in his kitchen cabinet to Thailand for free instead of hawking our priceless wildlife heritage for pocket change. But seriously, some of the political crooks and outright swindlers messing the affairs of our country belong in a zoo somewhere. Thailand would be a good start. I am sure there are a lot of bananas and may be even oranges in those zoos. Anyway I intend to talk about something else.
What I mean by our country being on sale is within the political frontier as we approach our date with history. We are on the last lap of a historic race and battle to define our nation for ourselves, for our children, for our communities and for a beautiful nation called Kenya. This battle has pitted a cynical mafia type regime against the very citizens who elected them with unprecedented enthusiasm only three years ago to replace a dictatorship that had tormented the people of Kenya for decades and against whom the people fought with bare hands and won.
Finally the mythical Wanjiku with real legs, real arms and a brain of her own will walk calmly to the voting booth, we hope, and say Yes or No to the Wako Treachery, called the Proposed New Constitution. It can’t get any better than that, can it? I tell you the benefits of democracy are many. But what happened to fair play in national affairs of the magnitude our country is experiencing?
The Orange team would want to believe they are like Paul Tergat in the last one hundred metres of the recently concluded and very exciting New York marathon, with South African Hendrik Ramaala marshalling every last ounce of energy in him to overtake the legendary Kenyan runner before the finish line.
Paul Tergat triumphed much to the joy of millions of Kenyans, but Ramaala of course had to rely on his own skills and energy. He couldn’t buy the folks on the sidelines to run a few steps for him as he took a rest, he couldn’t ask the New York Police to give Tergat a hit on the head to slow him down. The poor fellow couldn’t even buy the organizers to move the finish line backwards for his benefit. Ndugu Ramaala lost to a better athlete in a fair race.
The referendum battle in Kenya, as important as it is to the nation and its future is anything but fair. The crooks in government have basically gone bananas. President Kibaki himself is going wires to win the referendum. Nothing is sacred any more.
A few days ago in Canada we had one of North Americas weird kids pass time activities known as the Halloween which takes place on the last day of October. During the Halloween evening kids go for something called “Trick or Treat”. For me that meant standing at the door of my house with a box of candies for waves and waves of kids most of them encouraged by my son to come to the door and declare “Trick or Treat” while dressed in almost devilish outfit meant to scare the crap out of people. The idea is that if you give the kids candy they will go away in peace and wish you well, if you don’t they are supposed to skin you alive (metaphorically). The candies worked just fine for me. I was a few dollars short, but nothing to send me to the bankruptcy office.
President Kibaki it seems is having the largest Halloween “Trick or Treat” party ever in the tortured history of our nation. All for the purposes of winning the referendum, it seems. Mzee is literally standing at the door of State House not just in Nairobi but also in Nakuru, Mombasa and God knows they may soon start cleaning the cobwebs at State Lodge Kisumu to allow Raphael Tuju to herd a few broke politicians in there for the goodies. Anyhow our Mtukufu Rais is loaded with candies as long as you come in eating a banana. And w e thought all Kenyans pay taxes.
The toys Mzee is dishing out include whole districts curved out of nowhere to give Kibaki supporters something to confuse the people with. Universities are also available at the right price, never mind that our national universities are becoming alleyway learning institutions with no resources and limited capacity to do what they are supposed to do best, namely produce and disseminate knowledge at the highest level. Of course the banana leaders need money to do the necessary.
Let me say something about the real consequences of arbitrarily minted districts being dished by the President. Number one there is no problem having new districts wherever that is determined to be necessary. Number two there is already a process underway to achieve that goal. Why the political interference from State House? The big issue though is that in the proposed political dispensation in the Wako Draft, the districts are actually centres of power as devolved from the Central Government. As well the Wako Draft requires a president to win in at least 50% of the districts. This means if one individual has a control on how many districts we can have and where, then that someone has control of the whole country single handedly. That would be pathetic, wouldn’t it? That is what somebody wants Kenya to look like.
If we were dealing with a genuine and serious constitutional making process rather than the hocus pocus games from State House, the 71 districts existing at the time of the new constitution would be making a political and constitutional pact on how they want to govern themselves, govern the affairs of the nation and share its resources equitably for the overall good of one and all. They would have to create a fair mechanism of how new districts that will have equal powers with them would be created thereafter. That is the cardinal bond between devolved powers.
In Canada for example we have the provinces as the first and most significant tier of devolved authority in the land. There are eight provinces. It would be absurd if the Prime Minister of Canada would just wake up one morning and cut Ontario Province into four saying it is too big. It would be outright insane if the same PM actually needed a certain number of provinces to be in power. Same with George Bush. He can’t cut Texas into five States to help him win elections. Can you imagine what the politics of the United States would be if the president could just manufacture states the way Kibaki wants to manufacture districts to achieve political ends?
What happens tomorrow if we have Otieno Kajwang as our president and he wants to turn Mbita into twenty districts? What do we do? That really is the problem but we know the rapid creation of districts today is just simply part and parcel of the massive corruption in every aspect of governance in the country.
When Kiraitu warned us that the Yes team will use government resources to finance the Banana campaign people grumbled and expressed outrage. Today the President himself is raiding our national assets and some people want to call it the power of incumbency. This is public theft, simple and is up there with the Goldenberg scum as a tragic development in the way the leaders run the affairs of the nation.
I am bewildered that when the KNCHR, whose leadership and membership mean a lot to me and to other human rights activists issued its list of those they intend to prosecute for abuse of office and use of public resources to prop up partisan interests on the constitutional referendum campaign, the name Emilio Mwai Kibaki, President and Head of State of the Republic of Kenya was not there. I know he is above the law as head of state, but is he also above the law as a leader of a political party and individual member of the same be it NAK,DP, Narc etc, to actually defraud the nation to finance a political project however noble the cause? I don't think so.
Nowhere did we hear about the activities of the media proclaimed "Narc Activist"
Mary Wambui, God knows what she was doing before "Narc" came to power. Certainly she was NOT traveling with taxpayer and state provided security services, tons and gunias of food aid, medical supplies and cash for those who would promise to be Banana voters. Surely there must be a limit to the wacky politics of imperial presidency, exercised even by remote relatives and/or partners of the elites in power. National resources should never be usurped as personal property of those in power and their associates. That is the definition of corruption in high places.
If Kibaki wants to run the government through “roadside decisions” that is his problem, but he has no business using national resources for his partisan political project. Whether Kibaki likes it or not, a banana campaign is not a government project. It is actually a DP project and they have lured a few lost leaders here and there who are having nightmares with their own constituencies. Why is Ngilu not campaigning? No, it is not because she is “ a temperamental woman” upset about something as someone was trying to say. She is a realist. She can see the earth is not flat. My point is that Kibaki should go out there and campaign for his Bananas but please leave our Treasury and resources behind. Nobody can buy the dignity of a nation. You cannot buy the conscience of the people of Kenya, not with their own land. Let’s stop this madness now.
And then there is the case of salaries for Chiefs. Why is the government buying the chiefs with awesome salary increases which anybody would love to have. Listen, some of my relatives are chiefs and I would be the happiest person for them to get what they deserve.
There are two aspects to this “Chief Buying” saga we need to focus on. One is that the actual vote from the chiefs would make absolutely no difference to the Yes team. What does this mean? For sure we know the government is not buying the votes from the chiefs-it is useless. What the government is trying to buy from the chiefs is their ability to influence the vote.
Historically (Chiefs and Provincial Administration) have corrupted, robbed and help rig elections in more ways than one. Most of the times it involved simple political thuggery by the state to terrorize voters and the populace; Chiefs often use the police and the AP’s to direct traffic on voting days and intimidate people, particularly in the rural areas. That is not going to work. Smart chiefs are going to take their money and shut up, and follow what the Wananchi are doing. This is what has happened throughout the referendum campaign. Leaders are listening to the voices of their own constituents and those who are not are having some problems. That really has been the magic of the referendum campaign.
The other aspect of the “Chief Buying” technique of the Yes crew is that this guys could just be plain nasty and totally uncaring. We know the country as a whole and civil service in particular is already undergoing deep retrenchments to attract foreign loans and investment. Most of the folks don’t even get their money until years later, if they do.
The government is going to offload a huge part of those on its payroll whether you vote Yes or No. How about if some brilliant chap in the Yes “Stink Tank” came up with the idea: Lets give the chiefs big bucks, they get our back and six months from now they are history by law? Wouldn’t that be fun? And who would have the last laugh? Not the unemployed “Chief” for sure.
The irony of it all is that the chiefs may very well have the last laugh, of course at a big expense to the Kenyan taxpayer A No vote means the Chiefs’ jobs are intact and no body is going to touch their presidential gift, even with a long stick. Don’t forget the first thing our 9th Parliament did was to increase the salaries and benefits of all MPs to make them instant millionaires in a country where close to 60% live below the poverty line. This parliament has no moral right to reject any salary increases anywhere in the civil service. So the chiefs will have their money. The question is, will they have their jobs?
I don’t want to speculate at the probabilities but the chiefs know they are better off without Wako. The odds are the chiefs are going to be either neutral or support what is popular around them. It would appear to me that the Yes team in the “Chief Buying” strategy can only purchase neutrality not support except for those they already have. It is not going to achieve much, but at least someone is trying.
I was amused the other day to hear people still telling Kibaki to be neutral and “above” partisan interests. The Catholic Church a week ago asked the president to stay above the referendum debate. Where the heck have they been or who are they kidding? At least Kibaki has been upfront about his partisan position as the leader of a political interest group (DP) and I think it is a good thing as opposed to a few cowards who have taken a stand they are too afraid to declare to the nation.
One more thing. We have been told that the salary increases the government is announcing to buy votes have not been provided for in the respective budgets. It reminds me of the infamous story of a Moi Kanu 2002 leader in Ukambani who placed electricity poles all over promising Wananchi instant power, only to sneak back to collect all the poles after the elections.
I agree with those who say eat the money they are throwing around and take the goodies but defend the nation come referendum day. If these guys can play loose and fast with our money and resources the way we have seen to buy this Wako thing, it must really mean a lot to them.
If the Wako Constitution was good for Kenyans they wouldn’t be buying us to vote for it. One thing Kenyans know is that as soon as politicians get what they want, their first duty is to recover the money they spent to get it. The Bananas are throwing out the kitchen sink to get Wako Constitution, they are sure going to need it to recover the cash and loot even more. They must be stopped and the time is now. Let’s tell Kibaki and everybody else loudly and clearly that our country is not for sale. That should be our vote on Monday November 21, 2005. Put a NO SALE sign on your conscience and defend your country. Future generations will thank you for it.
By the way, I don’t know yet, what to make of the pending High Court ruling on the referendum coming down on Tuesday barely a week before the referendum. My sense is that the judges will reject the application and hide behind the fact that Kenyans will have a final say at the referendum even though the Draft was written by a select bunch of friends.
If the judges were to rule in favour of the applicants and stop the referendum, it would save Kiraitu and company from a humiliating defeat, but that is very unlikely. The real legal hurdle for the Kibaki constitution is with Section 47 and that only comes into play if the Draft is passed.
As it is I am confident Kenyans are going to throw out the Wako garbage and bring back to earth the runaway Kibaki presidency and then we can do things properly and get a new constitution for the nation. I don’t think much can be done to salvage the nation until we deal with the extremists who hijacked the Kibaki regime from the people who elected the government on December 27, 2002. A NO VOTE on November 21, 2005 is just down payment towards ending political dictatorship in the country. But it is a good start and a solid investment in the future of Kenya.
The writer is a human rights activist
