My President

Let us not believe despite of all the apparent evidence to the contrary in the present character and conduct of our central government that the virtue which raised us from dictatorship to an expanded growing democracy, clasping a country in its embrace, has ceased out of the land.

Let us accept the alternative explanation of the crimes and inconsistencies that are at this moment startling the majority in this country and world at large, that ‘we have been extremely negligent in the appointment of our rulers’. But, Kenyans, admissible as the plea of negligence may be for the past it will not avail you for the future.

I propose now not to institute the thorough searching examination which I ask you to make-for, to do this, time would fail us- but I propose to direct your attention to the great facts of the case at hand, and then to glance at the platforms and the candidates that are offered for our support; and while I confess an interest in this great subject, that dates from my boyhood, and has strengthened with my strength, I will endeavor, as much as possible, to let my remarks be calm, careful, truthful and impartial.

Uhuru Kenyatta, a greenhorn politician, has always played politics of “putting Kenya first”, contrary to the wishes of his handlers. Prior to his endorsement as the sole presidential candidate for the new KANU that earned him the tag, ‘project’, he had not display hunger for power. He conceded defeat and took a back seat as the official opposition leader in the ninth parliament. He’s remembered as one of the immediate and great critics of NARC’s president, Mwai Kibaki whom he once described his leadership as off-hand, off-eye style. Kamwana did not disappoint in the 2005 national referendum when he teamed with Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement to oppose the draft constitution. A move many viewed as suicidal as it antagonized the Kiambu power house with the Nyeri’s.

In 2007, Uhuru shocked the world when he joined the incumbent for a re-election not minding his official position to take on the sitting president. Uhuru saw the Kenya first and not him, besides being tactful, as the late Kijana Wamalwa once said during the burial of Kenya’s doyen of multiparty politics, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, “to be a great leader, one must stand on the shoulders of great leaders.” Uhuru stands on the shoulders of the former philanthropic dictator Moi and the outgoing president, Mwai Kibaki. Remove Kimemia’s, Muhoho’s, Wanjohi’s and the entire Mount Kenya Mafia that surround him then he remains my best bet to lead this country. Raila’s needed input in the modern Kenya is not basically leadership per se, but dismantling the corrupt networks, majority of whom hail from the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities.

Raila Amollo Odinga is my most admired politician and for over straight one decade, has held headlines in mainstream dailies. Raila is a political leader, a pan-Africanist, a social democrat and an afro-optimist. Whether you are a Kikuyu or a Luo, it remains a fact that Raila is the most discussed political personality in Kenya, the most respected Kenyan leader in the world and the most hated symbol of the ethnic Luo republic by the Kikuyus.  His radicalism is a creation of the unjust system of governance and not quest for power.

At 26, he was a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. He had just came back from Germany to find when the Kisumu massacre occasioned by the Luos waving KPU salute (dume) at president Kenyatta, occasioning his father to be detained for one and a half year without trial. In both 1974 and 1979 general elections his father, Jaramogi was denied yet another chance to participate in the elections.
Even the heartless act of Ougo who resigned as Bondo MP for Oginga to join parliament in 1981 bore no fruit when KANU denied him clearance to participate in the by-election.
In 1982 his father was invited to address the house of commons in London where he let the cat out of the bag that he was coming back to Kenya to form a new party forcing the government to pass the Souko Tuore bill in a record time to make Kenya a de jure one party state. The manifesto was ready. Many people were arrested most of them lecturers later to be refereed to us ‘seven bearded sisters’.
August 1st, came the failed coup and Raila was charged with treason and remanded for six months then government entered a nolle prose cue after a team of lawyers from Britain had been hired by Raila’s friends put their defense ready. The same year Raila was released and before he could leave court, he was rearrested and detained without trial for six years.

Raila was released and six months later in August 1988 arrested over Mwakenya. He was taken to torture chambers in Nyayo house where he spent 10 days in waterlogged cells before his wife, Ida, made habeas corpus application that saved his life. He was then detained for 1 year.
In 1989 Raila was released and joined Matiba and Rubia in 1990 to put pressure for section 2A to be repealed. Moi government asked them to consult the people and before they could go for the rally they were arrested and sent to detention for another one year.
In 1991 he was released and joined forces that formed FORD. The security agents tipped him that this time the government was plotting to assassinate him. He went in exile in Norway for six months. This was the time the Berlin wall fell and the wind of change was in the air. He opened offices in London, Paris and Bonn. Finally in 1992, section 2A was repealed and FORD became a party.

This is the man a certain ethnic republic court no shame to demonize and ask the Luo republic to “Move On”
Some pieces of unsolicited advice have been, without a dig of consideration, advanced that the lake republic should accept the current affairs as they are. On this I put it that I would rather live in the streets fighting for a just course than to live on my knees begging since the stakes are too great for me to achieve

With the obnoxious supreme ruling, I have, great Kikuyus, Kalenjins, Kambas, Luos etc (My conscience does not allow me to use the generality, Kenyans), the most profound respect for the president of the Supreme Court of Kenya for his learning (not intellect), his integrity and his patriotism, and yet I find in his ruling, as expounded upon the one side and the other, that this country is to be taken from the people by artifice and not by fair dealing.

Institutions exist for the people, not the people for institutions, and the ultimate test of any system of politics, body of opinions, or form of belief, is the effect produced on the conduct and condition of the people. This is scarcely a question for a popular assembly. This is not the place to decide a question serious as the one under consideration.

Here, then, are good reasons why I should have either not written at all, or else should have chosen some other matter to talk about. In excuse for persisting I can but say that the subject is one about which I have been led by circumstances to follow considerably; and though undoubtedly each of us knows more about himself and his own affairs than any one else can possibly know, yet a stranger’s eye will sometimes see things which escape those more immediately interested, and I allow myself to hope that I may have something to say not altogether undeserving your attention.

I shall touch as little as possible on questions of opinion; and if I tread by accident on any sensitive point I must trust your kindness to excuse my awkwardness.

When politically instigated assassinations were the order of the day, there was always a lamenting voice. The old Kenyatta was adversely associated with the brutal murder of Nyandarua legislator, JM Kariuku (a kikuyu), TJ Mboya (a Luo), Pio Gama Pinto (Indian), and many undisclosed. That was the legacy of his 16 year rule. The baton was passed to Moi who pledged to follow in the footsteps, welcoming the most regretted and infamous Nyayo era, and did not hesitate to eliminate a number of dissenting voices.
Today, the country still seeks justice on the stage-managed road carnage the claimed the life of the vibrant Bishop Alexander Muge (a Kalenjin), the highly dramatized murder of the former foreign affairs minister Robert Ouko (a Luo), whose assassination catalyzed the agitation for multiparty democracy, Masinde Muliro’s soft murder at the JKIA (a luhya) and hundreds of Kikuyus, Kambas, Luos, Luhyas, etc (still won’t call them Kenyans) who lost their lives during the saba saba uprisings. Again there was a lamenting voice.

Moi’s enriched his injustices with torture and today, Nyayo House stands tall in the middle of our largest city as a monument to symbolize a nation crying for redemption.

Kibaki, as VP, before getting the state house baton, was adversely mentioned in the assassinations of the 1988 Gem MP-elect Owiti Ongili and the presumed heir –apparent to the same seat, Otieno Ambala. It is also whispered among some public quarters that his desire to cut short the tenure of his boss through plotted assassination resulted in an abominable act of executing his own father. Coming to power, the chair of committee in devolution at Bomas, Prof. Odhiambo Mbae, and Embakasi MP elect Mugabe Were fell for the bullets from his lieutenants.

Kibaki was to outdo the founding President in presiding, meekly, over massacre of thousands of people during the 2005 referendum campaign in Kisumu courtesy of Raphael Tuju and PEV of 2007/08 courtesy of Uhuru and co., compared to Kenyatta’s insensitive shooting of school children in 1969 Kisumu massacre.

I take leave, for pleasurable pressure, to admit cowardly though that the deaths of TJ Mboya, Argwings Kodhek, Robert Ouko, DO Makasembo, Owiti Ongili, Otieno Ambala and many other fallen heroes of the Luos were only mourned in the Luo republic, was it so for the deaths of JM Kariuku, Bishop Alexander Muge, Pio Gama Pinto, Masinde Muliro, and many other non-Luo victims?

When the government coffers were shamelessly emptied through the Goldenberg deals, there was a lamenting voice, someone went to the courts, not streets with stones, to seek justice and the former VP George Saitoti was the respondent. When Kenya’s security system was greatly compromised, someone lamented, but then the members of an ethnic republic rubbished it only for our history site to host the Artur’s brothers. The members of this ethnic republic today coax Luos, Luhyas, Rendilles, Wardeis, Pokomos, Ormas, Elmolos Turkanas to embrace peace and ‘Move On”. They clothe their evils guarded by, the current vocabulary from their think-tanks, ‘tyranny of numbers’ with call for PEACE!!

What peace?

Peace, not to go and uproot railway, but fail to access dissent housing!
Peace, not to go and shout, including throwing stones, in the streets, but fail to get enough sleep for fear of the future!

Peace, to call members of some large ethnic republics brothers while when they retreat to their castles they demonize my ethnic republic!
What piece, Citizens of the Kenyan land?

And as Sunday Nation’s Fifth Columnist, Philip Ochieng, writes in his ‘Democracy can’t be premised on numbers alone’, whether the numbers describe an overwhelmingly large social class or whether only to a coalesce of large tribes (like the Kikuyu and Kalenjin today), the theoretical formula is the same: it licenses the numerical majority to impose their will upon everybody else. The single thread that runs through all theories of democracy is that an overwhelmingly large majority should singlehandedly wield a huge political bludgeon to force material justice on the whole society.

The majority can be as dangerous to society as Germany’s Nazi crowds who consigned 50 million Europeans to the grave between 1933 and 1945. Numbers can become functionally democratic only when they are also armed with knowledge of the objective needs of society.

If Uhuru’s government will raise the retail price for unga and milk, there would be no token to grant Kipkemboi from Litein, Bomet County to buy the commodities at a lower price than Oketch from Othoch Rakuom, Homabay County and submitting that in my mid thirties, all the legal forms I have ever filled at various places, never have I come across where I am required to fill in the name of my president, I must, for now, and as long as the prevailing circumstances allow, live as a passive captive who accepts everything said, regardless of who says it, but remain not to recognize the president since on 4th March 2013, I queued for hours to vote, not to participate in population census.