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.
