The culture of intransigence and impunity is in full gear

Commentary
By Barrack Muluka
The Standard,
Saturday, November 18, 2006.

Everybody is back, and everything is back. Prof George Saitoti is back as the boss in Jogoo House and as a prime role model for our children. Kiraitu Murungi is back at the Ministry of Energy as another role model.

Even the Armenian Artur Margaryan is said to be back. I should not be surprised to see Margaryan signing autographs for our primary school kids in the streets of Nairobi. The culture of intransigence and impunity is in full gear. Our people say that if you should find your father running naked with a wooden torch of fire in the thick of the night, you do not tell the world that your father is a night runner. But there are limits even to the application of our sage philosophy.

There can be no gainsaying that President Kibaki has achieved some good things during his first four years. We have heard about economic growth and we have seen something about free primary school education and a little of Constituency Development Fund. All that is good and the man in the House on the Hill deserves a pat on the back. He deserves a pat on the back, too, for a semblance of sheen in the Nairobi city centre. Then there are the trees they have been planning all over the place, along Uhuru Highway, Chiromo Road and Waiyaki Way, to say nothing of the street lighting. I pray there is no scandal behind all this.

And that is about as far as it goes. But I am not so sure about this economic growth thing. I have written many times about why I think we are being taken for a ride and why — even if they are not taking us for a ride — it does not matter, anyway. I shall rest that there, for now. But everything else is not right and President Kibaki must take the flak.

The one thing that we need not remind the President is that he is our first democratically elected President. Ahead of him, Presidents Kenyatta and Moi had perfected the skills of mystifying themselves, frightening all of us stiff and pretending that we had elected them unopposed. Even when Moi subjected himself to competition in 1992 and 1997, we were not exactly persuaded that the elections had not been stolen, in his favour.

Then come the year 2002 and Kenyans overwhelmingly vote for Kibaki as president. Mr President, you have disappointed Kenyans. When you were reading from an angry script at Uhuru Park during your swearing in, many Kenyans resonated with you. You threw away diplomatic etiquette and pretence to call Moi names to his face and in front of visiting dignitaries. You caused President Museveni of Uganda to point out that you were going over the top, humiliating Moi. You made Moi to go to Kabarak without eating your food at State House, or showing you which keys opened which room in the big house. And Sally wept.

But Kenyans did not mind. For, they were tired of informal government. They wanted a new Constitution, Constitutionalism and the rule of Law. You promised them all this. But not only that, you promised that a new Constitution would be here within 100 days. You said the culture of roadside proclamations and the tradition of impunity were over. You said there would be zero tolerance to corruption. You even went on to proclaim that there would be no sacred cows in your Government. So what happened, Sir?

We are investigating Saitoti and Kiraitu and you bring them back to Government with awful impunity. Mr President, are you so insensitive to public outrage?

Nobody knows for sure that these two gentlemen stole anything from public coffers. But what about perceptions and sensibilities, Mzee Mheshimiwa? The public has unfinished business with these gentlemen. To the extent and to the extent the Government is the Government of the people and not the personal property of the President, you have no business, Mr President, bringing them back to Government, until the Court of Public Opinion is ready to give them a clean bill of health and a new lease of political life.

But maybe, Mr President, you really do not care much for public opinion? The public can rave mad about things like corruption and the Constitution for all you care? They can go jump into the lake, with all this talk about insecurity and about the rule of law? You really do not give a damn? Have you not given away land title deeds even when there was a Court order barring you from doing that? You demonstrated that the Law means nothing to you. But by so doing, you set a bad precedence — you and your ministers.

When the President and his Cabinet do not respect the Law, then the nation obtains in the context of institutionalised anarchy. For, anarchy is simply steeping life in impunity. When Kenyans reject a certain political party and without varying the Constitution the President goes on to appoint ministers and their assistants from that party as you have done, Mr President, the President demonstrates that he holds the electorate and the Law in utter contempt.

It is now crystal clear that Mzee Kibaki was just vaporising when he made that irate inaugural address at Uhuru Park in December 2002. In the proper order of time, that address must go down in history as sheer mockery to the people of Kenya.

The nation must for its part be all the wiser for this. Kenyans will learn to mistrust those whose words vaporise the moment they leave their lips. Kenyans know, for example, Mr President, that you are the owner of these Narc-Kenya activities.

Mr President, another November 21, last year, awaits you and Narc-Kenya.