Millions of Cord supporters may have been watching with amazement attempts by the thieving Kikuyu ruling class to elevate President-elect, Uhuru Kenyatta to the status of President before he is sworn in and as a Petition challenging his declaration as President-elect is scheduled for filing at the Supreme Court on Monday, March 18th 2013.
Uhuru has had a Kibaki-guided tour of State House, is meeting foreign diplomats while the ICC suspect aka President-elect has begun taking all sorts of decisions reserved for President. Most amazing, Uhuru is receiving “security briefings” at his house and making moves towards forming the Cabinet. To understand the awkward nature in which events could turn abruptly, one has to picture a situation in which the Supreme Court declares that the IEBC tallying process was compromised and orders a new election in 60 days.
If this were to happen (it is the only possibility as far as Cord is concerned), imagine the spectacle of a person who has already met diplomats returning to the campaign trail in a re-run of election that he might lose if it is true that he was rigged in. It is shocking that the Jubilee think-tank is asleep because if it were active, what Uhuru is doing is basically childish and smacks of a lone-ranger concoction devoid of fore-sight and informed opinion.
A President-elect ought not to assume the duties of a President before the swearing in ceremony is completed especially when there is an impending court case that might overturn the decision that led to the pronouncement of victory. Uhuru’s naïve posturing ahead of the Cord petition is irresponsible, amateurish, boisterous, uncalled for and utterly flabbergasting to say the least. It smacks of arrogance and impunity which even turns off objective Cord members who may want to believe that he won the election and who are awaiting for the content of the Cord petition to make up their minds as to whether to stick with RAO or let it go.
Already, Cord is promising their supporters that they have overwhelming evidence that election was compromised and, according to unofficial figures, Uhuru Kenyatta’s votes was inflated with more than 700,000 votes to enable him win with a slim majority. The NSIS’ and the IEBC’s top officials are in a state of panic at the prospect of being exposed depending on the evidence Cord has in store.
These conspirators are so scared that they have even tried to block Cord from getting documents which ought to be public as per the New Constitution. Under the circumstances, the best Uhuru could have done is to stop acting as a drunkard, take it easy, play a low profile and await for the outcome of the Cord petition. By showing an I-don’t-care attitude in relation to such a sensitive issue, Uhuru is telling Kenyans that he knows something millions of Kenyans do not know – that the outcome of the Cord petition may have been decided. This could be dangerous for Republic of Kenya.
In fact, the primary concern now is not even Uhuru’s “Presidential posturing” but the psychological impact of this posturing on the 5.3 million Kenyans who voted for Cord. Given Uhuru’s activities since he was fraudulently declared President-elect, Kenya has two presidents, one active and one passive with the latter being on his way to retirement. For many Cord supporters, the latest developments could be a pointer that the Mafia riggers of election may be too sure about their strategy to an extent that they have given Uhuru a go-ahead to pose as “The President”, probably because they have already decided the outcome of the Cord petition through dirty Mafia tactics they used to rig elections.
The only way of doing that is to compromise the Supreme Court and although no one has seen the evidence on the hands of Cord, Uhuru’s posturing is dangerous because silently, it tells Cord supporters that in as much as they can wait for the Court petition, the Mafia bosses at NSIS, the Army, the Commissioner of Police and other conspirators may have hatched a new scheme to defeat the Cord petition regardless of the evidence. This is where the danger might pop up.
If Cord can demonstrate to the public through the Supreme Court that election was rigged, and with the Uhuru theatrics showing in town, Cord supporters will find it difficult believing that the High Court has not been compromised if it rules in favour of Uhuru.
What will happen next will depend on whether Raila Odinga agrees with the Court verdict and in case Agwambo suggests that the Supreme court may have been compromised, Uhuru’s current “Presidential theatrics” will combine with growing suspicions and fears of perpetual election rigging by two ethnic groups in charge of the State apparatus to produce a dangerous political mixture that may explode in the streets thereby creating a situation which might make Kenya ungovernable.
Uhuru Kenyatta’s current Presidential antiques should therefore be shelved on grounds that they are an incitement to violence, anarchy or chaos depending on what happens to the Cord petition. Uhuru’s minders should advise him to play his Presidential razzmatazz away from the media because there might be no swearing in on 26th March 2013. The winds of change may take over but do I say!
Okoth Osewe
Secteray General
Kenya Red Alliance (KRA)
About the Author
1. For as long as no petition has been presented to the court, surely the president elect is free to go about the business of a president – elect, and I see no harm in proceeding with hand over activities, even if basic. To expect Uhuru to act otherwise is to expect him to act as if he is not confident of his win or is guilty of an electoral offence.
2. However, I do agree with your statement below. “By showing an I-don’t-care attitude in relation to such a sensitive issue, Uhuru is telling Kenyans that he knows something millions of Kenyans do not know – that the outcome of the Cord petition may have been decided. This could be dangerous for Republic of Kenya.”
Yet, if you were in Uhuru’s shoes, what would you do? Act like you are guilty and hide out waiting for a petition that never seems to make it to court by the day or build confidence in your win and enjoy the privilege that comes with it if only for a couple of days?
Given the Nairobi traffic and the new access to presidential motorcade, I’d take the latter.
KSB: I could debate the issue with you if you can define the term “Presidential-elect” and “President” within the context of the Kenyan Constitution or whether you understand the LEGAL limitations between the two entities. I do appreciate the area of agreement between us. Regards and keep the peace.
Kenya: Battle for Central Supremacy
By Dauti Kahura, 26 November 2011
Last Friday, an inconspicuous meeting of Kikuyu Council of Elders took place at the Homeland Inn along Thika Road. Two weeks prior to the meeting, attendees had been notified of the assembly through a text message written in Kikuyu. The meeting was called soon after the much hyped and talked about coronation of the 86 year old James Njenga Karume as the sole bona fide leader of the kikuyu at the holy shrine of Mukurwe wa Nyagathanga. There was a certain urgency to the message.
Although the coronation is still generating more heat that light and was one of the reasons why the meeting was called, the message sent out, instead, was about determining the destiny and future of the Kikuyu nation in light of the 2012 general elections, among other pressing community issues.
About 200 not-so-old and old Kikuyu men drawn mainly from Central Kenya, Nakuru county of the Rift Valley region and Mombasa congregated at Homeland Inn, a Makuti eating and drinking joint, run by Wokabi Muriithi, the elder brother of Nderitu Muriithi, the Laikipia West MP and assistant Minister of Industrialisation. Both are President Mwai Kibaki’s nephews.
The men included, men of cloth, from the Akorino sect, evangelical churches, as well as a priest from the Catholic Church. But on this day, the priest wore his secular attire. Also present were senior Kikuyu politicians such as Nginyo Kariuki and rich businessmen.
The entire meeting session was conducted in Kikuyu language with breaks of song and dance being performed by men attired in traditional Kikuyu apparel. Women were barred from attending the meeting, notwithstanding, the fact that the organisation has a significant number of women as subscription paying members.
When I inquired whether it was standard practice for the association to bar women from attending the organisation’s meetings, Wokabi, who is the treasurer of the association clarified that women were not being discriminated against on the basis of gender. He explained that only women who were considered to be “traitors” were not welcome to the meeting.
One of the women who showed up at Homeland Inn and was not allowed into the meeting was Patricia Wairimu Njuguna, a subscription-fee-paying member of the association and who has attended several of the association’s meetings. Wairimu, is a tall, combative, tough-talking, dare-it-all, 36 year old mother of two.
Unbeknownst to many, she is the one who obtained a court injunction that stopped the recent Kamukunji by-election that was to take place on May 23, 2011. To many Kenyans, the temporary court victory was the brainchild of Paul Waweru alias Frankie-one of the then by-election contestants, but in fact it was Wairimu who stopped the by-election. The by-election was finally held on September 18, 2011 and was won by PNU Alliance candidate Yusuf Hassan.
The talk of “traitors” being in the midst of the “true representatives of the Gikuyu people” was the catalyst that triggered a barrage of accusations and counter-accusations and revealed the subterranean reasons of the elders’ meeting. Apparently, the September 18 by-election is at the centre of the emerging schism and a struggle over the ultimate control of the entire Kikuyu vote in the country and in the Diaspora by the Kikuyu Council of Elders Association.
At the Homeland Inn meeting, the association took time to praise itself for delivering the Kamukunji seat-not to the PNU Alliance or even the MP Yusuf Hassan-but to Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta. “Let it be known that we voted for Uhuru Kenyatta,” thundered one of the elders. “We want our people to know that any Kikuyu who does not follow Uhuru is a traitor and therefore a treacherous person. Let people also know that by delivering Kamukunji, we were sending a powerful message that the Kikuyu nation will flex its muscle come 2012.”
Yet, even as the talk of traitors abound, investigations by the Weekend Star have revealed that there are apparently two Kikuyu Councils of Elders that are now engaged in a vicious power game over credibility and legitimacy of the Kikuyu nation leaders.
And that explains partly why Karume’s October 29, 2011 coronation at the Mukurwe wa Nyagathanga shrine attracted opposition from a section of Kikuyu elders. The reasons that have been advanced by some elders is that Karume did not consult them, that he married recently and has a son who is yet to be circumcised, therefore cannot lay claim to the tribe’s leadership mantle. Thirdly, he invited non-Kikuyus to the Kikuyu nation holy shrine, a taboo to both women and aliens.
Thus the elders argued that by not consulting them and subsequently going ahead to be crowned in the presence of other non-Kikuyu elders, Karume “desecrated” the shrine and the shrine has to be cleansed. That is why the Karume coronation was also item number six on the list of matters that were to be discussed at the Homeland Inn assembly.
Investigations by this writer show that on July 21, 2009, a Kikuyu Council of Elders Association was registered with the office of the District Gender and Social Development, Kasarani, as a self-help group/project. The certificate of registration serial no is 37863 and is signed by District Gender and Social Development Officer, Rose N. Mwangangi. Wachira Kiago, who is in his mid 50s and lives in Roysambu and was the chairman of the Homeland Inn meeting is designated as the Steering Committee Chairman.
The same year on November 24, 2009, a Gikuyu (Kikuyu) Council was registered by Joseph Onyango, who is the deputy registrar of Societies. The certificate of registration is no 31268 and the office bearers are listed as James Njenga Karume, Stephen Ndung’u Karau and Peter Munga. Munga is the chairman of Equity Bank and Karau is a retired colonel and former army doctor.
Wairimu says after she had managed to halt the Kamukunji by-election, the Wachira Kiago-led council of elders “stole the thunder from her feet” and quickly ran to Uhuru Kenyatta and other Kikuyu MPs such Jeremiah Kioni to report about “the hard work they had been doing in Kamukunji, despite limited logistical support.”
According to Wairimu, logistical support is the euphemism that Wachira and his cabal of fellow elders used in Kamukunji by-election to solicit millions of shillings from Uhuru Kenyatta and other MPs from Kikuyuland. “During the Kamukunji by-election Uhuru was not properly informed of the on-goings on the ground,” lamented Wairimu. “This may sound as sour grapes, but the truth of the matter is that Wachira and his group of elders lined their pockets with the money and did not use it expressly for the purpose the money was set out for”, said Wairimu. “This is an open secret in Kamukunji about the elders’ misdemeanour’s and that is why now they refer to me as a traitor because I voiced my displeasure of the elders’ handling of the money. I am saying anything new about how money given by Kikuyu politicians to the Wachira’s group was spent.”
But Wairimu now also says that the Wachira-led council of elders is not the bona fide Kikuyu Council of Elders. “I can testify to the fact that their association is registered as a self-help group that hoped to cater for a clique of Kikuyu businessmen. But with a general election in the offing, it might as well serve as a vehicle to cash in on the windfall that is 2012 general elections.”
Wokabi says the differences arising with the Karume group has to do with his “unilateral decision to be anointed as the ultimate Kikuyu elder without consulting us (Wachira-led elders).” He says it was an abomination for Thuita Mwangi, the diminutive chairman of the expansive Embakasi Ranching Scheme to coronate Karume. “I fault Thuita. He crowned Karume as what? As Njamba (the warrior), Gitonga (wealthy man) or Muthamaki (leader)?
In the Kikuyu epistemology, elders were generally crowned at least on one of the three or all the three levels. Wokabi said the council of elders he belongs to, does not recognise Karume’s elevation as the Kikuyu nation spokesman.
Wokabi also stated that nobody is sure whether Uhuru was crowned as the prince of the Agikuyu people. “We (the elders) do not know and these issues need to be straightened out.” With Uhuru Kenyatta being publicly declared the richest man in Kenya by Forbes magazine, his supporters are in no doubt that one of the reasons why he was handed the githii (the crown or mantle) is because he is a Gitonga.
Like many of the elders I interviewed, Wokabi fell back on the “bad influence theory” and told me that, “Karume is not a bad mzee. The people surrounding him are misleading him”. Without saying much, I got the sense that Wairimu, the brazen Kikuyu nationalist and who is considered to be well-regarded by Karume could be one of the people “misleading” Karume, when Wokabi said, “it is the likes of Wairimu who are causing divisions among us.”
Kimunya Kamana, the 81 year old former mayor of Nakuru and from the same age-set group with Karume-they were circumcised together in Molo where they grew up together-came for the meeting. He is the chairman of the Kikuyu Council of Elders, Nakuru branch. Shocked to learn that there are two sets of Kikuyu Council of Elders, he said that, there are some things that “I had heard and they had duly distressed me.”
One of the things that seemingly disturbed Kimunya was Karume’s apparent going ahead with the”controversial” coronation that has visited disrepute on the Kikuyu nation’s shrine, “even after we warned him not to”. “Njenga, as far as I am concerned, is a jolly good old man. Somebody must have misled him to bring shame on himself and the shrine. But now that I am in Nairobi I will look for him and hear his side of the story,” said Kimunya.
Some of elders who did not want their identity revealed said some elders who are exploiting the long-held differences between Karume and Stanley Githunguri want to now also paint Karume as a “traitor” because he had conspired with outsiders to crown himself the sole Kikuyu spokesman “so as to sell the community’s political interests to our enemy (meaning Prime Minister Raila Odinga).”
Githunguri, who finally beat Karume in the 2007 general elections to become the MP for Kiambaa after a long struggle to “dethrone” Karume from the seat has openly declared that he will be supporting Raila for the presidency and urged fellow Kikuyus to do the same. In the current political dispensation, insofar as the Kikuyu nation is concerned, the easiest way for a Kikuyu voter to earn himself or herself the tag “traitor” among the diehard Kikuyu nationalists is to be seen not to be toeing their hardline stance-that of supporting Uhuru Kenyatta unconditionally, unquestioningly and unreservedly.
Amidst all the hue and cry over his coronation, Karume has maintained a studious silence and eschewed public altercations arguing that he will not be drawn into arguments with elders some of whom are agemates of his “children”. Karume, who is also the patron of GEMA says it is “preposterous and incredulous” that the Wachira-led group of elders are insinuating that he desecrated the shrine and that his mission is kwendia ruriri (trade the Kikuyu nation) to the Prime Minister.
According to elders who are both known to Wachira and Karume, the battle is about getting a stranglehold over the Gikuyu people as the country heads to one of the most epochal general elections in 2012. “Wachira’s ambition to become the leader of the Agikuyu people is not in doubt,” confided an elder. “He believes that this is his time because as he argues, Maina Njenga who had a grip on the community especially its influential youth is in bad books with the government. In short, he is seeking to replace Maina Njenga and supplant the old man Njenga Karume who has been synonymous with Gema for almost 40 years.”
Sir/Madam Macy i can see your cunningness Rakini Go slowly (the new vocabulary )in every Kikuyu Media)(president-Elect)what does it eminate? Is it a new thieving Vocabulary in thieving and deption? Cool baby Cool! have Peace and continue pray hence a new Pove. Good tidings perhaps in Kenya too.
xxx…………..xxx
KSB: The police just told me that you are hiding in Lidingo. They think that what you are doing constitutes a crime and have advised that I continue gathering every bit of evidence. Continue before you are nabbed.
Cord legal team swoops on Bomas
By PAUL OGEMBA AND ISAAC ONGIRI
Posted Thursday, March 14 2013 at 00:30
The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy on Wednesday deployed a team of 20 lawyers and dozens of legal assistants to the Bomas of Kenya to collect crucial information as they prepared to file a petition against Mr Uhuru Kenyatta’s election on Friday.
This was after the High Court in Nairobi ordered the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to release important documents demanded by petitioner Mr Eliud Owalo.
“We have a huge team of lawyers at the Bomas of Kenya. The commission was dragging its feet but the judge granted us the order we prayed for and at the moment our people are there with photocopiers,” said Makueni Senator-elect Mutula Kilonzo.
Also at the Bomas of Kenya last evening were Machakos Senator-elect Johnstone Muthama, Dr Eseli Simiyu and Ms Janet Ongera who had been there soon after the IEBC agreed to supply materials and data used in tallying the presidential results.
IEBC officials at the Bomas initially declined to allow the Cord lawyers access to the documents, demanding written permission from the commission CEO James Oswago.
Mr Mutula further said Cord had begun receiving information from Safaricom after an out-of-court deal.
“We have begun receiving information required to put together a water tight case. We will be analysing the information and exhibits from witnesses before we officially file the petition tomorrow,” Mr Mutula said.
Mr Mutula, who is Education minister, said he and Lands minister James Orengo were assisting the Cord legal team as liaison officials.
Last evening, Mr Orengo complained that the IEBC was hiding crucial documents and was unwilling to submit all the materials demanded. “They have not given us what we wanted. The guarantee made in court is not being honoured this is contempt and total impunity by people keen to hide the truth,” Mr Orengo said.
The IEBC had agreed to release Form 36 used to record the final presidential election results from the 290 constituencies and other crucial data.
The coalition on Tuesday claimed in the High Court the IEBC was frustrating its efforts to get information and data.
When the parties appeared before Justice Isaac Lenaola on Wednesday morning, he ordered that they meet and discuss the modalities of supplying the documents.
Cord lawyers Jotham Arwa, Peter Kaluma, Ababu Namwamba, Mr Owalo and Ms Ongera held a two-hour meeting with IEBC lawyers Nani Mungai and Kamau Karoli where it was agreed to meet the coalition’s demands. Prof Nyong’o was present.
A day required
Mr Mungai told the court that the commission will need only a day to make available documents used in the final tallying of presidential results while Form 34 used at polling centres to record presidential results would be available for photocopying at the Bomas National Tallying Centre.
“The commission has also agreed to make available log files for all short messages received from Safaricom Limited and all software contracts between the IEBC and all firms that provided software services during the elections,” said Mr Mungai.
He, however, said the commission would not be in a position to provide all the results declared electronically as they were not the final results.
Election dispute big test for Kenya’s top judge, who once said Kenya needs Odinga as president
By Associated Press, Published: March 12
NAIROBI, Kenya — Confidence was so low in Kenya’s courts after its 2007 election that people preferred to settle their disputes with machetes and bows and arrows. After this year’s disputed presidential vote, there has been no violence, in part because of the faith the country has in its highest-ranking judge.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga will soon preside over the biggest case of his short judicial career. Last weekend the country’s election commission named Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of the March 4 presidential election with 50.07 percent of the vote.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga is challenging that result, saying there has been massive rigging. Odinga’s camp said Tuesday that the prime minister was cheated out of 1.8 million votes, a margin that would give him an outright win.
The March 4 election was the first since postelection violence killed more than 1,000 people in 2007-08. This postelection period has not seen any violence. Odinga asked his supporters for calm, and Kenyans seem to have more faith in their government.
Mutunga on Monday said the election case would be heard “impartially, fairly justly and without fear, ill-will, prejudice or bias and in accordance with our constitution and our laws.”
Mutunga’s career as a social and political activist has placed him near Kenya’s top politicians for decades, and he’s shared his opinion on them. One quote from the 2006 book “Raila Odinga: An Enigma in Kenyan Politics” may become an issue for the case he soon presides over.
“I am convinced Kenya’s transition needs Raila as the president of this country,” author Babafemi A. Badejo quotes Mutunga as saying.
Mutunga has been “a committed activist in the pro-democracy movement in Kenya since the 1970s,” according to a biography posted on a Kenyan government website.
Unlike other judges in Kenya, many who know Mutunga believe his independence is genuine, and is unlikely to be persuaded by bribes or threats. Mutuma Rutere, of the Nairobi-based Center for Human Rights and Policy Studies, said fairness is Mutunga’s “biggest asset.”
“There is enough evidence that he can be depended upon to preside over this issue in an independent manner,” said Rutere, who worked with Mutunga at the Kenya Human Rights Commission. “His whole life has been about promoting justice and democracy.”
Mutunga knows Odinga well. In the late 1970s, as former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi consolidated his hold on power, Mutunga was jailed in 1982, the same year Odinga was detained for alleged treason. Later the two joined a pro-democracy group called the Young Turks.
In the book “Raila Odinga,” Mutunga is quoted as saying Odinga “is a nationalist and a patriot. He has always struggled against dictatorship and oppression and been for social justice.”
“Though it may sound contradictory, he is also an ethnic baron. He has not sorted out this contradiction in his life. He uses both nationalist and ethnic cards for the advancement of his political projects,” the book quotes Mutunga as saying.
Kenya’s 2010 constitution was passed in the wake of the 2007-08 tribal violence. It gives Odinga until Saturday to file his election petition and Mutunga’s court two weeks to rule. Kenyatta cannot be sworn in until the case is closed.
On Tuesday, Odinga’s team said it is seeking an order from Kenya’s High Court to compel the election commission to produce electoral registrars and other documents used in the vote count. Odinga’s team says the documents can help prove Odinga was cheated out of 1.8 million votes. It said the election commission is operating under a cloak of secrecy.
“This is a serious indictment on the integrity, ability and above all honesty of the” election commission, Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo said.
Though Mutunga has a reputation for fairness and independence, the Odinga case will present new, difficult tests in a country with a history of extra-judicial executions and unexplained disappearances. Even before Kenyans voted, a letter attributed to a violent gang circulated throughout the country warning of “dire consequences” if Kenyatta was blocked from running.
Kenyatta faces charges of crimes against humanity at The Hague-based International Criminal Court, and his eligibility to run for president was being tested in court.
“If anybody, any candidate, any party, any agency, or any other actor thinks that it will bend the ear, mind and resolve of this chief justice to do anything that is unconstitutional or illegal, then they are mistaken,” Mutunga said in statement in February.
Mutunga, 65, was born into a poor family among the Kamba people of Kenya’s eastern province and has degrees from universities in Kenya and Tanzania. He has taught constitutional law at the University of Nairobi. After his 1983 release from prison he went into exile in Canada, where he earned a doctorate in law at Toronto’s York University.
He returned to Kenya in the early 1990s. Before being named chief justice, he had never been a judge. He has spoken out in defense of homosexuality in a deeply conservative society and is described as a proponent of “neoliberal” judicial reform. He wears a stud in his left ear, an item that became a publicly debated issue as he was named chief justice.
Out of 10 contenders for the job, Mutunga’s name was the only one forwarded by the Judicial Service Commission to President Mwai Kibaki. Mutunga’s appointment was approved by lawmakers in June 2011.
Gladwell Otieno of the Africa Center for Open Governance, a pro-democracy group in Nairobi, said Mutunga has been a good chief justice. She notes that he is one of only six justices, however. A seventh seat is vacant, opening the possibility of a split decision.
“Ever since he took over the judiciary public confidence has been rising steadily. It’s quite high now,” Otieno said. Odinga supporters “may expect him to rule in their favor… but he’s not alone there and it depends on the quality of evidence they present.”
___
Associated Press reporter Tom Odula in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thank you Macy for getting into the bottom of everything and i totally agree with you.i would also want to believe that the campaigns time are over and thus not time to rush to Kibera and tell people how you were stripped of your win hence the case has not yet been decide.
The National Security Advisory Committee (NSAC)
Francis Kimemia (GEMA)
National Intelligence Service Director General Michael Gichangi (GEMA)
Internal security Permanent Secretary Mutea Iringo,
Foreign Affairs PS Thuita Mwangi (GEMA)
Inspector General of police David Kimaiyo (Kalenjin)
Other high ranking security officers:
Commander-in-Chief Mwai Kibaki (GEMA)
Chief of Defence Forces General Julius Waweru Karangi (GEMA)
Commandant, National Defence College Lieutenant General General Waweru (GEMA)
Immediate former Commandant, National Defence College retired Lieutenant General Njuki Mwaniki (GEMA)
The suspect’s comfort and pride is short lived!the jubilee supporters are enjoying borrowed comfort
A new ruler for Kenya
Jan 2nd 2003
The World Bank Group reports on Kenya.
What a waste. Though bitterly tribally divided, degraded and impoverished by Mr. Moi’s incompetence and graft, Kenya is still the regions biggest economy and brightest hope. With just a few vital reforms, it was always said, the country’s industrious peasants and enterprising middle class would flourish again. Mr. Kibaki promised judicial reform; an anti-corruption authority; privatisation of state-owned utilities; and approval, within 100 days, of a new and already-drafted liberal constitution. Most Kenyans believed him.
According to a Gallup poll in January, of 65 nationalities surveyed, Kenyans were the most optimistic about the year ahead. Shortly after his election, Mr. Kibaki, aged 72, a keen drinker and high-handicap golfer, suffered his fourth stroke. All the same, he started quite well. He fulfilled another campaign pledge to make primary-school education free for all. Two of Mr’ Moi’s pocket judges, including his loutish chief justice, and the central bank chief were forced out. The anti-corruption authority was set up, though without the power to prosecute. An inquiry into Kenya’s biggest scam, the Goldenberg scandal, which involved the theft of over $500m in compensation for bogus gold and diamond exports, was reopened. So were Mr. Moi’s torture chambers in Nairobi, though this time to a sombre public, many of whom filed through the cells in tears.
But, failing the introduction of the more fundamental reforms heralded in the draft constitution, such as devolution and an independent judiciary, these piece-meal measures are starting to look like mere crowd-pleasers. A tangle of inquiries has been launched into past government swindles and half of the country’s judges were this week urged to resign. Yet no minister in the new government, which includes several of Mr. Moi’s former toadies, has been charged. The Goldenberg scandal damaged the reputation of George Saitoti, who was Mr. Moi’s finance minister and vice-president at the time, yet he is still in government, as education minister. Indeed, he was very nearly reappointed vice-president, following the AIDS-related death in the summer of Mr Kibaki’s first number two, Michael Wamalwa. Nor does corruption near the top appear to have ceased. And the promised sale of state assets, notably of the rotten state telecoms company, has barely been mentioned.
At the heart of these contradictions lies the venomous tribal politics that Mr. Kibaki vowed to end. This is hardly surprising. As the election showed, Kenyan politicians are among the last in Africa to campaign flagrantly on the basis of tribe. Yet the speed with which Mr. Kibaki’s presidency has become synonymous with the interests of a small group of his Kikuyu tribe, Kenya’s largest, and its cousins from the Mount Kenya region is extraordinary. This may be largely due to the president’s frailty. Always prone to indolence, Mr. Kibaki seems periodically befuddled because of his recent strokes. Weighing up his mental faculties, one diplomat commented, “Let’s just say I wouldn’t give him a clerical job.”
Family friends
The Mount Kenya mafia, as the Kikuyu cabal became known within weeks of Mr. Kibaki’s inauguration, appears to have renounced reform in favour of shoring up its ailing patrons power. In particular, its members seem determined to shut out Raila Odinga, a firebrand leader of the Luo, whose pre-election defection to Mr. Kibaki delivered him victory. At the time, Mr.Odinga was promised the powerful prime ministership outlined in the draft constitution. Hence, perhaps, some of the disruptions to the recent constitutional review conference, of which the murder of Mr. Mbai, a Luo, was just the most brutal. The conference was suspended for two weeks of national mourning, following the death of Mr. Wamalwa. Whole days passed in flatulent debate on minor issues. As the review process approaches its final round, concedes its weary chairman, Yash Pal Ghai, it could easily be sabotaged entirely.
That may not put off western donors, who withdrew from Kenya in 2001 and are itching to return. The World Bank has already declared itself ready to re-engage, and on November 3rd the IMF is expected to approve a credit for $240m. But ordinary Kenyans are already disappointed with Mr. Kibaki’s drift. From the AIDS-ridden shanties on Lake Victoria’s fertile shore to crumbling tourist resorts on the paradisal Indian Ocean coast, and especially in Mr. Mbai’s Nairobi home, where 21-year-old Catherine was grieving, they had expected something so much better.
http://economist.com/World/africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2126505