Contrary
to many fables weaved by ignoramuses, Kenyan Opposition has always been
vibrant. Pre-independence we had that nascent rivalry between KANU and KADU.
While KANU advocated for a centralized system of Government as trumpeted by
their name, KADU espoused Democracy in their acronym and were in favour of a
federal albeit regionalized format now hailed as the devolved system. As the
Kenya African National Union drew most of its support from Luo-Nyanza and
Central Kenya, the Kenya African Democratic Union conversely gained traction in
Luhya-land, Maasai-land, Kalenjin country and the Coastal region to counter
perceived dominance from the Big-two of the time. In the ‘Small General Election’
of 1960 KANU handed KADU a routing that sent their opponents in a tail spin after
piping them to the bragging rights as the ruling party. Partly for being
magnanimous victors and mostly in the interest of National Unity which they
espoused nominally, KANU co-opted KADU into the new majorly African pre-independence
government. In Early 1961 Jaramogi Oginga Odinga made history as being the
first member of KANU to be suspended by the party for his steadfast adherence
to communist leanings contrary to the capitalist outlook that was the staple of
KANU. As far as politicians go he is one who evinced the greatest fortitude and
consistency in sticking to his ideology and principle even if it was to his
detriment in the murky and duplicitous world that is politics. He atoned for
this by ceding leadership of the party to Jomo Kenyatta who had hitherto been
incarcerated for politically-maligned trumped up charges by the colonial
government. He made the infamous statement, “No Uhuru without Kenyatta.” He may
have done this out of nationalist pride at best or in the worst-case scenario merely
seeking cheap popularity, naivety, loyalty to long-term friendship, selflessness,
poor calculation or blind faith but that is not the gist here speaking from
hindsight. For his contribution let’s give him a benefit of doubt and stick
with patriotic sentiment. In 1963 Kenya became independent and Ajuma Oginga
Odinga was made Vice-president.
Now
the year is 1966 and disenchanted with the course that the unified independence
government was taking in both land reform and stripping him of his meritoriously
earned power, Oginga Odinga resigned from KANU and formed his own party KPU.
The Kenya People’s Union was proscribed almost on inception and doomed to fail.
Nonetheless, support in Luo-Nyanza irrevocably moved to this new entity. The
chickens came home to roost for KPU when Kenyatta and Odinga were involved in a
feisty shouting-match during the opening ceremony for the Provincial General
Hospital built with funds sourced from Russia. Talk about the proverbial
‘swearing in ceremony.’ KPU was consequently banned and its leaders detained in
the coldest form gratitude has ever been expressed towards a man who was ready
to risk life and limb not so long ago for the freedom of Kenyatta. From then on
Luo-Nyanza and Kisumu in particular became emblematic of revulsion and
resentment against KANU. The assassination of flamboyant and popular independence
leader Tom Mboya; a Kenyatta loyalist and veritable front-runner as his
successor hailing from the region became the Rubicon-crossing event as far as
entrenchment into opposition is concerned for the Luo nation ~ Dennis Mukoya ‘No Chills’ Blog.
Later Kenya became a ‘de-facto’ (by fact) one party state,
then an attempted coup later the status was upgraded to ‘de-jure’ (by law) one party state but the strife for opposition
politics still bubbled hot both within KANU ranks and externally. Come the 1990s
and the repeal of the infamous Section 2A hailed the full return to mainstream
and the real birth of the multiparty politics in Kenya. People like Kenneth
Matiba, Charles Rubia, Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro, Mwashengu wa Mwachofi et.al
formerly KANU aficionados formed a huge opposition party Forum Of the Restoration
of Democracy (FORD). They were joined in it by Jaramogi’s equally fearless,
thick-skinned and radically hard-wired son Raila Odinga fresh from exile. As
people were busy eating Christmas goat in 1991, the master of convenient and
shrewd political machinations; Mwai Kibaki- a former Vice-president and
disgruntled Minister for Health, resigned and formed his own Democratic Party.
Fissures soon emerged in the behemoth-like FORD with Matiba keeping the
FORD-ASILI while Odinga became the leader of FORD-KENYA. All this division
resulted in a massive opposition vote split in the General Election come
December 1992 whose consequence was the ruling party KANU narrowly edging the
election with 36.6% of the polity with FORD-ASILI coming home with 25.7% at 2nd.
Kibaki’s DP was 3rd and Oginga came fourth. A few years later the Senior
Odinga joined the ancestral pool throwing Ford-Kenya into a succession battle. We
later as a nation hurtled into the Inter Party Parliamentary Group (IPPG)
period, had the 1997 elections and into an audacious phase in the horizon.
In the period between our failed coup
in 1982 and the return to Multi-party politics, political persecution was the
order of the day for all and sundry who failed to toe the party line with the
only legally existing one being KANU. State largesse and good fortune was
accorded to anyone who sang to the tune of sycophancy and unflailing loyalty
towards the head of state at the time, D.T arap Moi. Massive expanses of Public
land, beach plots, natural forests, state resources and prime residential
properties were assigned to the feckless cronies of the President of the day.
Appointments to state corporations, Ministerial and as Permanent Secretary were
openly with absolute disregard to any laid down procedure done in respect to
primarily tribal affiliation-based lines. A huge monument to ‘Nyayo’ for
vanity’s sake was supposed to be erected at Uhuru Park looking on to the one at
Kenyatta International Conference Centre ostensibly in following the footsteps
of our founding father. This project was to be financed by diverted donor funds
and was only curtailed by the valour and onerous resistance offered by one Wangari
Maathai, a future environmental Nobel-Peace Prize Laureate. Consider this as hearsay
and a story for another day!
As I had commenced saying, anyone who
tried to oppose the will of the government was met with outright brutality from
state agents who had set up shop at Nyayo House for the infamous Nyayo Torture
Chambers. Many who were dragged into this impressive structure did not come out
with any enthusiasm to recount their horrors therein. Only the tough-skinned
and supremely crafted bodies of Raila Odinga, Charles Rubia and Kenneth Matiba
among a select few survived this dispiriting existential Armageddon. But
horror-movie scripts and actual physical infirmities remain as testament to what
these men and women went through. Teeth were pulled out using pliers sans anesthesia, eyes were gorged out and
men were put through the vagaries of the crude pastoralist implement called the
‘burdizzo’ as retribution for being virile
in expression. Also detention without trial, pre-fabricated court proceedings
for sedition, treason and subversion were the order of the day. Daily heavy
handedness by the police became commonplace with being hauled and frog-marched
by the seat your pants becoming a popular means of transport for all who fell
foul of the police force and state security. Python-grade clobbering by the
later became routine practice not even questioned by our seemingly
progressive-minded and devout father of the nation who in front of live cameras
attended AIC church every Sunday as suggested by News Bulletins. Hiring and
Firing of Ministers and other state functionaries was done by the roadside and
announced in the Lunch-time news briefs. Grown men openly wailed in lamentation
on those same thoroughfares at being rusticated from the ‘Jogoo’ party. Swearing-In-Ceremonies
could be conducted at dusk or dawn and even elections called at the pleasure of
the President.
Fast forward to 2018. We have already
gleefully promulgated with great pomp and pageantry a theoretically progressive
document of Constitution and even elected two youthful leaders into power for
their second term. The legitimacy of these guys is supposed to be beyond
question as they were elected by a 54% margin of the electorate. We thought
that the year 2010 heralded a new epoch in our history where meritocracy,
experience, regional balance, gender parity and dedication to service would be
the principal yardstick to gauge suitability for any position in government. No
less that Constitution prescribes that only technocrats in the various fields should
be elected as Cabinet Secretaries. However, what differences do we see between
their style of leadership and that of the barely-literate ‘Nyayo’? I will let
you be the judge of that.
Demonstrations by the opposition in
more developed climes would have been met with civil banter at best and may be
a little bit of the water canon-action at worst. After the disputing of the
results by the National Super Alliance principals the usual opposition was
expected. In the run-up to the repeated polls a violent and diabolically brutal
crack-down was launched against the opposition. Reports of men, women and
children cut down by ‘stray’ bullets in the opposition strongholds was as
widespread as the existence of Nitrogen in our atmosphere. Children as young as
six-months were clobbered silly and into the ethereal realm for faults they
knew little of. Tear-gas and the water canon wash-down became almost a daily
routine but to what ends? Moreover, today as we speak media freedoms are on the
wane in this nation. After the cat and mouse game between the Government and
NASA about the swearing-in of the opposition leader; Raila Odinga as the
People’s President, the event was forced through courtesy of unspecified
threats by some quarters who will best remain anonymous for this piece.
However, the Government took its most repressive step yet to switch off all the
non-government owned mainstream media sources in Kenya. The week long media
shutdown was so that nobody would be informed on the goings-on at Uhuru Park,
the size of the crowd that was ready to manifest their sovereignty and partake
of their constitutional freedom of association. In so doing the Government
overstepped the same constitution it swore to uphold when the two-gentlemen
running the executive were sworn in. The love-hate relationship between the
Judiciary and Executive continues as the government is on record labelling the
Supreme Court as consisting of rogues and miscreants who serve at the
discretion of the opposition leader to debase them. Needless threats have been
proffered against the Judiciary in absolute reprehension to the tenet of non-interference
by the state with agents of the Justice system. Today more than at any other
time we witness the inception of bloggers and social media activists on the
government payroll with the sole purpose of spreading government propaganda,
insulting the Judiciary, gagging any divergent voices and attempted
intimidation of the opposition. Creation of jobs for the youth is a noble
venture; however, misusing of the cyber-space to cajole and threaten the
citizenry while wasting their hard earned tax-payers funds is simply bad
manners if I should label it as anything.
Today commando missions by our
specialized security forces are unleashed on the residences of innocent and veritable
opposition leaders who are consequently carted to police stations in their
pyjamas and slippers in the guise of preservation of national security. A duly
–registered citizen of this country who had dual citizenship who in times gone by
has even served as an advisor in the office of the Prime Minister was recently under
an aura of mystery deported to his second country merely for holding views
contrary to the government stance. With that went the Freedom of Conscience.
Intemperate statements of future arrests and prosecutions are the assurance
anyone who questions this move has received from the currently omnipotent
Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National co-ordination.
Today just as in the system we sought
to put in the rear view mirror state resource and privilege is accorded only to
the reserved few who are long-term buddies of the Executive, Members of the
right ethnicity and the usual sycophants and hangers-on. In fact the ill-fated
repeat presidential election in Kenya in October 2017 presented the chance of a
life-time to the myriad of political losers who were previously members of the
opposition groupings to gain back the fortune they had lost in campaign funds
by playing the role of boot-licker to the incumbent. These were supposed to be
relics of a by-gone time more so one worthy of consignment to eternal amnesia
from one’s conscience. Success by political patronage is the by-word today. The
current state of governance encourages the mediocrity that stems from
appointing characters on the basis of fancy and political correctness. We are
seeing the return of illiterate and political operators back to our Cabinet and
that can only sound the death knell and torpedo any expectations of attaining
whatever broad-based agenda we may want for Kenya. Alarm bells have been sent
ringing to sonic boom levels by the intervention of foreign ambassadors trying
to bamboozle the opposition members on matters governance which they are out of
their depth to have any discourse on. The Election in Kenya has become a
complicated matrix whose only function is as a formality to rubber stamp the
incumbent. Worse of all, taking advise from China on crippling the opposition
is the final straw that is breaking the camel’s back. Who will in future play
the crucial role of oversight that is much needed to forestall any potential
excesses by the government of the day? Just like in the past previously
proscribed tribal gangs are embedded into the security apparatus to try to
quell riots and this portends trouble. The constitution has virtually been
abrogated. Why would any sane human being want to peel back all the gains we
have made as a civilized and more democratic society? Why seek to obviate the
sacrifices, blood, sweat and tears of all the patriotic men and women who have
toiled, been jailed and killed just to take us back to where we came from?
Something has got to give.
Proposed solutions? Today I will propose
just one:
The
Government ought to bring back adherence to the Constitution to engender the
respect for the rule of law by all.
What do I mean? Nobody should be deemed
above the law. Honour the sanctity of Court Orders. Revile illegal tribal gangs
as criminal elements and nothing more. Propose any appointments on the basis of
regional balance and meritocracy. We have intelligent, well-heeled,
professional, youthful and energetic characters all round. Make gainful use of
their potential before the powers of their minds atrophy or fall into the wrong
hands. The current government should respect our wishes as a populace, do us a
favour and keep the guys we refused to elect out of our sight at least for five
years. Not reward them with state appointments as we refused to elect those
guys to keep them out of our ‘cookie jar’ for justified cause. Appoint the
youth to positions of authority to give them a head start on the experience
they will need to become future leaders. Otherwise you lose them to brain-drain
to the benefit of other nations or worse still to terrorist formations which
renders them potent weapons of civil disorder. Our Government should style up
as only oppressive regimes still use terms like subversion and sedition towards
the opposition. Antipathy towards some government policy can never be adjudged
to be mutiny but only constructive criticism. Otherwise we will only attract
the derision of our more politically adroit neighbours. We must make sure that
as Kenyans we stand up and jealously guard our hard-earned gains against
malicious erosion by non-patriotic individuals. Civil disobedience may
sometimes come in handy! This is a task nobody else will perform on our behalf other
than ourselves, otherwise we risk bequeathing upon our descendants a legacy of
cowardice, ignorance and being hoodwinked by the mediocre. That is undesirable!
Our Current Leadership should give
dialogue a chance as this is the only way to attain meaningful all-encompassing
development. To put it plainly all these recent activities raise suspicion if
this current government is truly a representation of the will of the majority
or merely a few guys scrambling for legitimacy after the unlawful and
unconstitutional seizure of power. That is why I beg the question, Has Kenyan
democracy regressed? This is a rhetorical question!
