Kibaki's Self-Guilt Ghost Emboldens Terrorists

While President Kibaki has been sounding more reconciliatory and focused of late, a closer look at his latest public speeches reveals a tormented soul. The hitherto aloof President is fighting an inner guilt that he dares not expose given his known personal pride.

So what is this flaming guilt eating Kibaki's soul? Well, look no further than his continued promise for a smooth transition. We all know power abhors vacuum and the whole handover business is explicitly covered in every constitution including ours.

That Kibaki finds it an obligation to explain the obvious to shameless claim credit for the same is no mere political hot air nor mischief.

The truth is the President is haunted by his immediate past. He is acutely aware of the genesis of his present term from that midnight inauguration. Poor Samuel Kivuitu must be feeling really betrayed in his cancer bed.

And Kibaki and his handlers know when to manufacture an artificial crisis and make motions to create and impression of solving it. They are simply taking advantage of Kenyans' reknown short memories. What is more, an insinuation of a chaotic handover would leave hairs standing behind their necks.

Kenya has laws and we don't have bad leaders for lack of the same. You see thanks to impunity, the laws are made for the ordinary Kenyan but the rulers exist to break them.

Banana state

Even Moi the dictator had no choice but to handover power after seeing his Project humiliated in 2002. But that does not stop Kibaki from frightening the political daylight out of gullible Kenyans.

That the President has been making this noise in every speech is no ordinary politicking. He is cleverly creating an impression of authority knowing quite well the country lies at the mercy of drug lords and merchants of terror. If in doubt just watch the tightly investigated Jicho Pevu series.

Just like buglers are likely to attack a home headed by a coward, terrorists and their local freelancers are exploiting lack of firm leadership within our borders. They strike Nairobi secure in the knowledge they can get away with the bloodshe several times over.

Contrast that with the terrorists' mortal fear to attack Addis Ababa. Well, Meles may be benevolent dictator but the terrorists know how strong his reactions to provocations can be.

A country is a strong as its leadership and a banana state is not one feeding exclusively on the fruit.

Famine Top Excuse, Mau and TJRC Dead

Just when the noose was tightening around the cabinet following their contemptuous decision to force TJRC down the throats of Kenyans, they have just up gradated the debilitating famine to a convenient emergency. Our smart political Alecs never suffers the dearth of creative ideas to disguise challenges before them.

With donors not buying the TJRC facade and promising no funding, the kite lost both wings before leaving the ground. Forget all the balderdash that we finance our national budget. That phantom declaration is principally aimed to create a sense of false pride among Kenyans as the looters go on a spree emptying our national coffers and auctioning Kenya to Libyans.

Look at Mau and the dirty tricks involved. While one side of the administration is left to do the heavy lifting, the other consorts with the same MPs hell bent on reaping maximum political capital at the expense of conservation. Inciting Mau peasants is easy for politicians who in real sense are protecting their own selfish interests at our national expense.

Raila may have just been unwittingly handed the velvet political noose. The Jewish folklore of fattening a lamb before sacrificing it has never been so prophetic. The Mau crisis was one that was started with the singular purpose of not solving it.

24-hour courts
You don’t expect Moi and Kinuthia Mbugua to vacate their large farms guarded by GSU just like that. Kenya has its owners. The parameters for dealing with the Kenyan masses and the masters are different as day and night.

The Cabinet must be smiling from ear to ear for the godsend DISCOVERY of famine that will soon make all of us forget any traces of impunity. Meanwhile the pests continue sucking our last drop of blood as they grandiose paper proposals. After the 24-hour economy now comes grandiose 24-hour court sessions. What next? NA BADO.

The Truth About Kilaguni Retreat

THE TRUTH ON THE COLLAPSE OF THE KILAGUNI TALKS
A PRESS STATEMENT FROM ODM

The ORANGE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT wishes to state that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya, the Rt. Hon Raila Amolo Odinga (the Prime Minister), and the ODM members of the Permanent Committee on the Management of Grand Coalition Affairs (the Permanent Committee) went to Kilaguni retreat in order to identify, isolate, discuss and resolve all the issues affecting the smooth running of the Grand Coalition Government.

We did this in order to enable the country move forward. It was in recognition of the fact that without resolution of these issues, the Grand Coalition Government would not be able to deliver on the People’s Agenda set out in the National Accord. The full and faithful implementation of the National Accord, in both letter and spirit, is well over-due.

The primary purpose of the Permanent Committee is to ensure that the Grand Coalition Government can function and resolve issues within it.

Unfortunately we were not able to agree on issues for discussion; issues which had been agreed on before hand. In fact,by March 14, 2009, the Joint Secretaries had prepared a Draft Agenda, which was typed and printed by the Presidency and Cabinet Office in the Office of the President on March 14th, and which ODM tabled at Kilaguni, contained the following items for discussion:

• President’s opening remarks
• Prime Minister’s opening remarks
• Minutes of Meetings held on 6th and 11th February,2009 (to be tabled)
• Matters arising
• Draft Terms of Reference and Working Modalities of the Permanent Committee
• Draft Grand Coalition Agreement
• Confidence Building within the Coalition
• National Unity and National Cohesion Agenda
• Issues affecting the Grand Coalition and mechanisms for resolution
• Evaluation and monitoring of the implementation of the national accord report
• Image building for the Grand Coalition
• Prof. Philip Alston’s report and Institutional Reforms
• Review of progress on the implementation of the national accord, including agenda 4
• Collective Responsibility
• De-politicization of the Public Service
• Any Other Business
  

The PNU and their joint secretary have not denied this FACT.

At its first meeting on February 6th, 2006, the Permanent Committee had agreed that in order for the Grand Coalition to run smoothly, a Grand Coalition Agreement and Terms of Reference and working modalities for the Permanent Committee needed to be prepared.

Indeed, the Joint Secretaries researched on ,met, discussed and consulted extensively on both instruments. Draft copies of both documents were subsequently prepared and circulated to the members of the Permanent Committee by the Joint Secretaries for discussion at Kilaguni. This was done more than one week prior to the Kilaguni Retreat.

In point of fact, both PNU and ODM agreed in the Draft Terms of Reference and Working Modalities that whatever either party wanted to be on the agenda for discussion would be included for deliberation.

In addition, the permanent committee’s meetings were to be closed to non-members.

The Kilaguni discussions were scheduled to take place on Friday, April 3rd, to Sunday, April 6th, inclusive. It was agreed that apart from security, only members of the Permanent Committee plus the two Joint Secretaries, would attend the meting.

However, upon arrival at Kilaguni, the ODM team found the entire place swarming with more than one hundred officers from the Office of the President (OP). The Director of National Security Intelligence Service, the Head of Public Service, the State House Controller & Private Secretary to the President and horde of other senior officials that ought not to have be there, were brought there by PNU team. The PNU coalition also invited Hon. Mutula Kilonzo and Noah Wekesa, who are not members of the Permanent Committee, in clear breach of the Terms of Reference and Modalities already agreed upon.

To make matters worse, the PNU coalition came armed with a Draft Agenda which was different from the joint agenda that had been agreed to and distributed to members.

The ODM team requested the PNU Coalition Members of the Permanent Committee to agree for the Joint Draft Agenda to be tabled for adoption and discussion to no avail.

Upon realizing that the PNU coalition did not intend to abide by the Joint Agenda, the ODM team prepared a second draft agenda with the following items:

• Management of the Grand Coalition
• Membership of the Permanent Committee & setting up of the Joint Secretariat
• Decision making and Government Communication
• Appointments in government
• Protocol
• The State of the Economy
• Security Organs
• Implementation of the National Accord
• Coalition Agreement (see minutes of Feb. 5th, 2009, page 3)
• Prof. Philip Alston’s report
• Fast Tracking Reform Agendas 1,2,3 and 4 agreed to at the Serena Talks
  

The ODM team then asked their PNU Coalition Partners to attend the meeting and have both Draft Agendas discussed so that an amicable decision could be made with respect of the issues of discussion but the PNU team flatly refused, insisting that it was their draft agenda or nothing.

The Prime Minister and the entire Permanent Committee went into the conference room on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 and attempted to resolve the differences without success. The Prime Minister then asked the PNU team to invite the President to come to the conference room so that all the contentious issues could be discussed and resolved. Unfortunately, the President refused to attend.

Both teams went for lunch and returned to the Conference Room with Prime Minister, hoping that the President would attend but this never happened. However after the Prime Minister asked for a brief break for consultations at about 2:30 PM, the president approached the conference room rather than stay and sit, he proceeded to a private office located on the second floor of the conference room.

Believing that the President was in the conference room ,the Prime Minister and the ODM team returned only to be met by Hons. Uhuru Kenyatta , Moses Wetangula and George Saitoti, asking the Prime Minister to go upstairs to the President.

It was at this point that the Prime Minister correctly advised the PNU team to invite the President to the conference room of the meeting. The President either refused to come down to the meeting. Instead, the PNU team started discussing “the need for an exit strategy”. They wanted the Prime Minister and the ODM team to agree to issue a Joint Press Statement in which the country was to be misled that the Kilaguni Talks had gone on well.

At about 3:30pm, the Prime Minister and the ODM team realized that neither the President nor the PNU team wanted to discuss the serious issues ailing our country. A decision was then made for the Prime Minister to return to his hotel room as both teams continued to stay in the conference room.

Barely ten minutes after the Prime Minister returned to his hotel room, the President climbed down and went back to his suite. The President did not even greet the ODM team. He passed the prime Minister’s room even without stopping to say “Jambo!”.

The meeting had collapsed!

ODM believed that we cannot have a functioning Government and Coalition without an honest recognition, isolation and resolution of the issues affecting the Grand Coalition and the country at large.

PNU, on the other hand, insists issues cannot even be discussed and that the retreat was meant as a PR exercise!

ODM is fully committed to have service delivery to all Kenyans; a serious discussion of all issues affecting the people of Kenya, particularly poverty and the state of the economy, unemployment, inequalities and inequities in resource allocation and distribution, grand corruption, extra-judicial killings, institutional reforms and legal reforms; and comprehensive constitutional review.

It is common knowledge that the National Accord provides for real power sharing in Government between President Kibaki / PNU Coalition and Prime Minister Raila Odinga / ODM. Yet one year and a half following the formation of the Grand Coalition Government, the only power that has been shared with ODM is the cabinet. President Kibaki continues to disregard the provisions of the national Accord and indeed the constitution by making major decisions affecting all Kenyans without regard to his coalition partner.

This situation must change!

We hope and expect the leaders of the PU coalition will show good faith and join us in attempting to address issues affecting our nation and people. But this must be done in full compliance with the National Accord. Reforms cannot be bought by lies, half truths, concoctions and power games by the PNU coalition.

Want to be Rich? Grow Grey Hair and Belong

Our national priorities often negate the very tenets of what we stand and aspire to become. Here we are as a nation crafting glossy vision 2030 which in light of what we practice is unwittingly designed to be an illusion at best and mirage at worst. Kenya is not drifting in the doldrums because of want or lack of policies. Far from it since almost every government office has its shelf suffocating from dusty white papers. The problem is these blueprints were all designed with the singular objective of not being implemented. Instead they were authored to create impressions of motion bereft of any real movement.

We live in a dynamic world that demands progressive leadership from in front and by example. Sadly for Kenya our fate rests with dinosaurs who are so allergic to new ideas they will readily and summarily dismiss any attempt to infuse creativity as insubordination. Our penchant to fall for TOKENISM for progress is infectious. When confronted by challenges we often seek quick fixes to wriggle ourselves out. In the meantime we leave the problem unresolved and on a worse scenario festering underneath to reappear with full furry at a later date.

Old is wood

The adage that old is gold is frequently used to intimidate or even cover up incompetence. What is passed as experience may as well be a catalogue of past failures that clouds your vision for a better and efficient route to success. At independence we correctly identified poverty, ignorance and disease as our primary enemies. But almost half century later we are still shamelessly shifting goal posts with coloured targets which are nothing but functions of the original malices.

Only in Kenya do you find greying technocrats who owe their positions exclusively to their native tongue. Just imagine only four permanent secretaries of strategic ministries share close to 250 years between them. And they are in good company starting with the civil service boss who has clocked more than 20,000 days on this planet and still counting while directing technical levers of the government. Smart Muthaura even knows how to draw an MP’s salary and more without the headache of campaigning. All he needs is a circular and hurrah a PS’s remuneration hits seven digits per month.

Road to nirvana

In the meantime, the most important cogs in the wheel of national wholesome development are relegated to the back banner. Getting rusty never killed or so it seems. Only when we start from the basics by squarely addressing the pillars of EDUCATION and HEALTH CARE will we mark a departure from our hitherto circular dance with tokenism. We must make no mistake is substituting quantity for quality. Making our dinosaur PSs millionaires every month is the epitome of inverted priority. Instead we could chose to permanently pave the road to nirvana by competitively remunerating our teachers, nurses and doctors.

IDPs Just Pawns in Political Game

True to tradition of avoiding making tough decision, Kibaki is having three days of rallies to the internally displaced Kenyans. The truth is Kibaki’s determination to create impression of acting is premised on sustainable plan. This unique problem CANNOT be solved nor addressed using the hackneyed old school leadership.

The IDPs are symptomatic of Kibaki’s betrayal of Kenyan dream. He started it immediately after the 2002 election. You could smell embarrassment on his face when his own PNU MP for Naivasha told him to his face the genesis of political tension in the Rift Valley. On entering office he chose to reincarnate his nostalgia of Jomo’s rulership and utter contempt of his voters. He capped it all with STEALING the election which makes it VERY difficult to spare Kibaki in the whole mess because he was the principal cause of the mayhem that let to violence in the first place.

True leadership is premised on making TOUGH sound decision in the face of crisis. But you cannot claim that virtue when you make CRISES your middle name. That we have been experiencing perennial election violence after every five years is cheap to trivialize and/or overlook the underlying root cause. Even Koffi Annan who saved us from self-destruction and was here for less than 40 days ended up understanding our problems better than the pretenders masquerading as the most experienced practising politician in Kenya today. Well Kibaki’s experience must be a catalogue of indecision and fence sitting that is often mistaken for principle to be hands off.

Cart before horse
That MPs are playing political games with people lives is not only inhuman but an extension of institutionalized IMPUNITY albeit in disguise. Moral authority like virginity is irrecoverable once lost to the winds of deception and fraud. Instead of formulating sustainable structures that will see Kenyans banish localized hostilities to the grave, Kibaki is comfortable by ridding the cart ahead of the horse.

Kibaki's penchant to opt for easy fixes in the face of grand problems amounts to cheap leadership oiled by short term measures. Such plots only succeed in incubating national problems making them potent to explode at the slightest political spark in future. IDPs need a permanent solution that will see them restart their lives in confidence of never having to look over their shoulders in case their neighbours revert to their old devious ways.