(sent by Nicholas Mireri)

Is a Raila presidency such a potential threat to Kenya?

By John Otieno

There could be no starker illustration of the threat that a Luo presidency poses to Kenya, nor more dramatic determination by other communities to forestall that eventuality! Professor Makau Mutua diagnoses the crisis facing ODM in a most simplistic manner.

In an article that coincided with the ODM’s Nakuru rally, Mutua revealed further the bad side of Kenyan intellectualism; lopsided observation of phenomena from an unashamed ethnic viewpoint.

The distinguished professor of law at State University of New York at Buffalo has penned among the most venomous articles in the Kenyan press recently, aiming solely to denigrate Raila Odinga’s role in Kenya’s democratisation and reinforcing myths about Luo unelectability.

Close interrogation of Mutua’s pieces over the last few months suggests that the professor hates Luos; stomachs a grudge against Raila; and is looking for whatever scapegoats to justify prejudiced conclusions on Raila’s role and/or predicament in today’s politics.

How else would he write singly on one man and one community at a time when Kenya is on fire set upon the country by an avaricious elite? Does Mutua find the Mungiki butchery, Mt Elgon clashes, escalating tribalism in government and corruption weighty enough for concerted analysis?

Mutua criminalises Luo support for Raila but glosses over the ethnic blocs of other presidential candidates. Yet Raila is perhaps the only one with a record of reaching to other tribes.

Mutua says Luos suffer from ‘communal psychosis,’ believing only one of their own can liberate Kenya from the yoke of anti-Luo socio-political and economic marginalisation.

Yet Luos voted for President Kibaki, a Kikuyu in 2002, shortly after cruising Moi, a Kalenjin, through a tumultuous second term under intense Kibaki/DP pressure. If Luos opposed Jomo Kenyatta and Moi, then it was certainly not because of the psychosis, for what would explain the revolt by Kikuyu, Kamba and other masses against Moi in the 1990’s?

Since former Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi appointed him to explore a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for Kenya , Mutua seems to have patented discussion on TRCs. Where was he before South Africans tried the idea? Even at the level of prescribing duplications for Kenya and Uganda, Mutua betrays ignorance about internal dynamics of those societies. He accuses Raila of impeding the formation of a TRC as he advised, conveniently forgetting that Raila was minister for roads, not justice, and even there many of his recommendations were overturned by Kibaki’s aides, then led by Mutua’s own friend Kiraitu.

Still, Raila left government years ago. What stops Kibaki from forming the commission now without Raila’s hindrance? Isn’t Kibaki in bed with Moi and the very people that Mutua wanted investigated?

Mutua’s recent vigour betrays his ambition to have the last word on Kenyan politics. He conveniently signs his articles as a ‘distinguished professor’ of law at SUNY Buffalo. Analysis of his intellectual worth is constrained by the fact that his pet topic, Raila and Luos, does not constitute a field in which he can be judged as a lawyer. His oversimplification of chequered Luo history cannot pass the slightest scrutiny in a serious sociology or politics department.

For those ignorant of the stratified American university system, Mutua passes as one Kenyan who has scaled the heights in American academia.

Distinguished he might be, but at SUNY Buffalo. Judging by eminence of faculty and competitiveness of programmes, the US News and World Report traditionally ranks SUNY Buffalo from below the tables.

To find distinguished professors of law in New York, one needs not cross the Manhattan waters to Buffalo; there are plenty at Columbia, NYU and at other respectable universities across the nation.

Mutua is about the only distinguished professor of law with substandard monologues to his name. For sharing his thoughts he courts bad company; I’ve come across a lame paper by Mutua prescribing TRC for Uganda: “Beyond Juba: Does Uganda Need a National Truth and Reconciliation Process?” Deficient of rigour, it regurgitates reports in western media about Kony’s abuses, incapacity of former Sudanese rebels to mediate peace etc., making it more like the work of a journalist than a scholar.

Last weekend Mutua was on Raila as always, lecturing readers on ODM’s death and the tribal underpinnings of Kenyan politics. “Mr Musyoka has no choice but to exit because Mr Odinga’s kinsmen will not even allow him to address an ODM public rally,” he wrote. Yet the rally was most peaceful; Mr Musyoka ran into a rousing welcome.

One wonders whether Raila’s kinsmen boycotted it.

The article ended in a sermon on how to rid Kenya of tribalism. “We must return to a policy of deliberate nation building, demarginalise ethnic groups and communities through affirmative action programmes, sensible devolution of power, and the equitable distribution of national resources.” Why not tell these to Kibaki? “We cannot build a modern 21st century state if our leaders are looters and perpetrators of human rights violations.” Besides rushing to England to bask in John Githongo’s limelight, does Mutua understand the gravity of Anglo Leasing or the roles of those involved?

“We will have to pass a new democratic constitution, grow a vibrant…..civil society that is insightful and devoid of ethnic, gender, religious, regional, and racial barriers….forge a new political class that is global in outlook, national in character, and altruistic in nature.”

Just how has Mutua contributed to Kenya’s democratisation, or is this something he just preaches to others?

Mutua was a lawyer when Kenyans were agitating for multipartism, what role did he play? Besides attending the Bomas conference as Kiraitu’s spanner boy, how has he contributed to discourse on political reforms?

Most preposterously Mutua questions people’s credentials as if he has any ideas to run Kenya. Yet all his friends, for whom his criticism is reserved, have failed to inspire under Kibaki.

He should be told, firmly, that now is not the time to falsify history. He should be satisfied being an economic immigrant in the USA. The last five years have exposed Kenya’s civil society leaders of yore as ideologically incapacitated people who jumped onto the democratic bandwagon without any values or inherent appreciation of its application.

They have failed in politics, and there is little evidence they were good in academics.

E-mail: jkotieno2000 aT yAhoo dOt co Dot uk.