Re: [Jambo] : We need to support Hon Raila--How about supporting the people of Kenya?

Ndugu Odhiambo,

Why jump the gun? Why are you panicking? Raila has said he is going to tell Kenyans his vision on Sunday.

Is what you are writing here that vision? or what you are telling us here is your own personal vision?, or it is what you think is his vision, or what you hope or wish is his vision?

You have no basis to tell anyone to support Raila until he unveils his vision. Then you can use that vision to sell him.

I say this for two reasons. The first regards empty issue-less rhetoric that tends to cast the country's future as dependent on the whims of an individual.

What Kenya needs is a system of governance that is self-correcting, and the people are empowered to rein in their leaders including the president and parliamentarians, who are now abusing Kenyans with impunity.

I for one is firm in my conviction that the fundamental problem facing Kenyans today is not who is going to be the next president, but lack of a democratic constitution. For the past 4 years, the elite have played cruel games and cheated Kenyans with selfishness never seen before.

The parliamentarians have deliberately dithered and frustrated the constitutional overhaul process. By various acts of omission and commission, all parliamentarians today are equally guilty of frustrating the constitutional reform process. This is a cross they must carry to their calvary.

We have watched in horror and consternation as the opposition have used every stratagem in the book to frustrate the kickstarting of the review process. I know at this point you are itching to start your anti-Karua tirade. But we know where Karua messed and where she delivered All these are verifiable facts. But the main issue is this, yes, Kibaki must answer Kenyans on this key issue: "Mr. Kibaki, why don't we have a new constitution today?"

In answer, he will point to his efforts to mutilate the Bomas Draft leading to the Wako draft which was rejected by the people in November 2005. He will point to the Kiplagat Committee of Eminent persons he set up in Apriil 2006. And to The Multi-Sectoral Review Steering Committee, whose work led to a very viable timetable which could have given Kenya a constitution by September 2007. He will point to the insistence by the ODM/KANU rabbble standing on the way saying "we don''t want comprehensive reforms! We demand minimum reforms now!

>From there of course it will be all downhill for Kibaki. The people will ask him, "Mr. Kibaki, why didn't Karua introduce the two bills which could have overhauled section 47 and entrenched the constitutional reform process in the constitution in December 2006 as she promised?" We know and it is on record that the ODM/KANU bunch vowed to shoot down these bills in parliament. But why didn't Karua (read Kibaki) just go ahead and introduce the bills to demonstrate to Kenyans his government's commitment to constitutional reforms?

Why did Kibaki acquiesce to the ODM/KANU demands for minimal electoral reforms as opposed to comprehensive reforms? The answer is very clearly written on the sky. There is no difference between the government MPs and the opposition MPs. They are all part of the same bad coin. The same poisonous elite parasitocracy that sees the state as their personal ATM. The people are only important as votes, to give the elite the P.I.N to the ATM so they can loot for another five years.

When the people ask for transparency and accountability, the elite drag their feet, dither, vacillate, dawdle, shilly-shally, hem and haw, anything but to push the struggle for democratization to its logical conclusion. They talk about second liberation struggle in the past tense as if that liberation has already been achieved; as if liberation is achieved through elections.

We know Kibaki goons need the old constitution the same way chicken needs grain. We know the ODM-KANU goons needs the old constitution the same way a cow needs grass. The elite as a group needs the undemocratic governance structure so they can steal and grab land and sell the country''s resources to their foreign husbands without wananchi having the right to intervene. Like fish out of water, the lumpen elite of Kenya is as dead as a dodo without the neo-colonial constitution imported from the land of their husbands. They love that old tattered rag they call the constitution to death.

The elite needs the contradictory set of laws to enable them to entrench themselves and get away with plunder, theft, embezzlement, environmental degradation, genocide and selling the country to their foreign husbands. They need the imbroglio -not worth the paper it is written on- to enable them to keep together their pseudo political parties which can only stay together when so-called ethnic kingpins have high sounding titles so they can bamboozle their starving kin into believing that when they (the elite) eat on their (kin's) behalf, they (their kin) also somehow get full.

The elite of Kenya vow with all seriousness that children of peasants and farmers are supposed to have rights like all children on earth. But in practice, it is clear what they mean and intend: the children of peasants and workers can enjoy the best life possible only vicariously, i.e by watching the elite on TV.

Had the elite of Kenya been straight with Kenyans from 1992, Kenya would be very far by now. We don't need all these empty rhetoric about unprincipled alliances whereby thieves of yesteryear are recycled to become our "new" leaders while we can still see their wet bloody hands clutching the insides of dead children they feed on.

We refuse to be fooled or herded into two warring elite teams, each promising the same old thing. We refuse to believe that any individual is capable of liberating Kenyans. The fate of Kenya, whether it will become a great state or a failed state rests on Kenyans to have the powers to take part in the discourse about their country's destiny freely and without coercion, fear or intimidation.

For any Kenyan politician to remain relevant in the ensuing period, he or she must tell us about a clear roadmap to constitutional reforms before, not after elections. We urge such leaders not to insult the intelligence of Kenyans by suggesting even for one minute that they are angels, and for that matter, they should be trusted with imperial powers which they will gladly hand over to the people after being sworn in.

For one does not have to be nuclear physicist to know that Kibaki did not patent the rights to duplicity and dishonor. One does not have to be an expert in anything to know that duplicity and dishonor is the ideology of the political elite. Their collective motto is "no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent personal interests". You see them say that with a glint in their eyes as if they have mouthed the greatest saying in the history of humanity.

Secondly and lastly, there seems not to be much consistency in the pronouncements of these political propagandists..
I quote Odhiambo's mumbo jumbo:

> With Hon Raila at the Presidency, this thing called
> corruption will be a thing of the past. We only need
> the president to apply the force of the law, and
> with the Kenya Police doing its work, and the courts
> being independent, there will be no corruption.

Is this not exactly the same situation we have in Kenya today? Why should the president, who is the head of the executive branch "apply the full force of the law", which is the task of the judicial arm? How can the courts be independent of the president if the president has the powers to "apply the full force of the law?" Can the judicial arm "apply the full force of the law" if the president is the prime suspect in a corruption case? Is this the same power Awori is applying in Busia?

Oh, I forgot. It is only Kibaki who is dishonest (the patent holder in duplicity). What am I thinking? Once we remove, Kibaki, anybody can wipe out corruptiion. Even Ruto.

I end by welcoming Raila to the the field. Let him state his vision. Let Kibaki state his vision. Let Kenyans state their visions. If there are any points of convergence, then let such convergence be based on principles that are guided by what is best for the people of Kenya--not what is best for elite. If we all do and aim to do what is best for Kenyans, i.e. if we all support Kenyans in their struggle for survival, we will find very little points of divergence.

So let Kenyans judge the various competing visions in a free and fair atmosphere. This is what we all fought for-the right to debate the future of our motherland. It is very important that we jealously guard the hard won rights to debate and discuss. This is what will push our country to sustained and sustainable economic development. They say that when two people in a committee always agree, then one of them is redundant. I disagree with Raila's statement yesterday that Kenya needs only two political parties. (I guess these must be ODM-Kanu, full of very shady characters on the one hand, and on the other the hand, NARC-Kibaki, also full of very shady characters--I am already gasping for air--someone please open the window). This frightening proposition has also been advocated by who else? Daniel Arap Moi, Joseph Kamotho and Uhuru Kenyatta, among others

No! Let a million viewpoints contend. Let a hundred flowers bloom (Mao Tse Tung).

"Kenya shall be a multi-party democracy", reads the amended section 2 (1991) in the tattered constitution. These people are even retrogressive by the standards of the present retrogressive constitution. We are all ears how ODM-KANU is proposing to govern without the constitution- for how are they going to appoint how many vice presidents (remind me again)?

No comprehensive reforms, no elections!

Tegi Obanda
Ottawa, Canada
April