A Minute of Honour

Away from the sickeningly boring and seemingly unending mediocrity bedeviling Kenya, it is only fair for us to take a minute to congratulate Barrack Obama for his loud victory in the first primary in Iowa. We can only hope that he continues to put up the same show starting with New Hampshire on Tuesday, onto the other states and even the election proper in November. As much as Barrack is not Kenyan, we should be proud of the association we have with his family roots. We are proud of you Barrack, congratulations!

War Against Self

I am fresh from a long and tedious flight during which I got to think through the Kenyan situation. We have just had elections which were closely contested. It is unfortunate that hundreds of innocent people are dying as a result of either politicians wanting to cling to power or ascending to power for the first time by all means. I said here before the poll many times over that both Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga are not fit to lead Kenya. If anybody still has doubts about this one fact, then they can do with some prayers. Look here, this violence is not about Kenya or its democracy. This violence is about two people who clearly have no agenda for the country but who want to rope it in for their own very shallow and selfish reasons. The most worrying thing however is that none of these guys has out rightly called for an end to the violence. All we have heard are half hearted statements that are quickly followed by “buts”. Raila Odinga, who is central in the crisis, has not said a word about the need for humanitarian aid to the displaced and the injured. He is giving interviews left right and centre where he goes on and on about how he is “the rightly elected president” with no mention at all on the plight of innocent Kenyans (even when asked about it, he somehow gets away with it with little excuses of how democracy is being muzzled). The same thing goes for President Kibaki. Kibaki, just like Raila, is responsible for the genocide in Kenya. He is a fabulously rich person and he has not offered a cent towards resolving the mess, a mess he is directly responsible for. He has similarly continued to issue half hearted statements that are capped with the words “after the free and fair elections”. Granted, the government has offered some humanitarian aid but then this is not about the government. This is a war started by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga as individuals. It has nothing to do with the interest of the country. I have seen Kalonzo Musyoka donate Kshs 500,000 through Red Cross. Now Kalonzo is not the richest of the three. He is not at the centre of the dispute like these other two guys either but he has repeatedly spoken for the innocently suffering Kenyans. I believe I am different from most other people because that is what I call leadership. Raila’s and Kibaki’s are leaderships to death and destruction. Now, what exactly is the bone of contention? The elections are over and there is no formal dispute, but people keep fighting. I blame Raila Odinga’s supporters (if not Raila himself) for starting a war for no reason. I blame Mwai Kibaki for failing to clump down on perpetrators of runaway hooliganism as the head of state. Here is why I blame Mwai Kibaki; you cannot claim to defend the rule of law and democracy if you have no respect for the same. Why do we have the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections regulations providing for petitions? We have these provisions to take care of any emerging disputes. Since the ODM which claims to have been rigged out does not have the guts or the civility to file a petition with the high court, Kibaki should have instructed his Attorney General to file one. The Presidential and parliamentary elections regulation states that any registered voter can file the petition. Out of the aggrieved hooligans, none has filed the petition. It also says the AG can do it. This is where Hon Kibaki should have stepped in and demonstrated leadership. It is only through petitioning that the poll can be treated as disputed. Right now, what we are seeing is an uprising that has no basis. Raila Odinga is the biggest protagonist in this entire circus. He lost the elections (either fairly or unfairly) and decided that the election was not free and fair. He wants us to believe that Juja Constituency registered a voter turn-out of 30%. He also feels that Tigania west, Nithi, Central Imenti and South Imenti all registered their lowest ever turn-outs since the introduction of multipartysm and that Karachuonyo, Ndhiwa and Kisumu Rural registered their highest. Fine, may be he is right, but is going on a slashing and looting spree the best way out of the predicament? I believe that if anybody has any respect, let alone love, for their country, they have to adhere to the rule of law, the force of the constitution and the power of tradition. The best way would have been to file a petition. We are not a jungle nation whose problems are solved using pangas. I also believe that Raila will be the sure loser if he continues with the route he has taken and if Kibaki continues with his exaggerated degree of rigidity. You cannot lay unreasonable conditions for negotiations with the president who not only has executive power, but who also feels he was democratically elected. That is like shooting yourself in the foot because nobody is going to bulge. I once said here that Raila Odinga is a leader unto darkness, anarchy and death and people accused me of hating him. I have watched him on TV totally unwilling to take even a modicum of responsibility. He passes the buck all the time even when his most ardent supporters are dying. But for how long are you going to duck responsibility Mr. Raila? What is remarkable about Mr. Raila’s passion for anarchy, beyond its intensity, is the ease with which he wins over converts. He has always tenaciously clung to his unverified beliefs which he confuses with fact and often inflicts this confusion to his supporters in his struggle to resolve any situation to his favour. When many people are persuaded to subscribe to the same pretense, of course it can gain the aura of objectivity. The trick is simple; depict yourself as persecuted and you will surely win sympathizers. If this is not delusion, tell me what it is. My humble submission is that the ODM need to petition the outcome of the election in court. Nobody can reverse the ECK chairman’s announcement, not even the president or the AG. Amos Wako is just being afraid of taking an unpopular decision. The best way to resolve this quagmire is telling people the truth which is that the ECK which had a pre poll approval rating of 75% announced the results and anybody dissatisfied with the verdict should either go to court or to hell. We cannot continue being a country at war with itself. When the losses are counted believe you me, ODM supporters will be the most affected. It is a pity that our so called educated, exposed and enlightened brothers continue to urge the idle and jobless youth to go on the rampage. I want to see Anyang Nyong’o, William Ruto and Raila Odinga themselves throwing stones and looting in Nakumatt. I want to see Sam Okello in hospital nursing a bullet wound sustained during “a fight to save his country”. Only when that happens, shall I acknowledge that Kenya means anything to any of these people. Meanwhile, the government should continue being ruthless when dealing with perpetrators of violence. It is indefensible when someone breaks into an innocent person’s property or when people torch a poor man’s house all in the name of fighting for democracy. That is stupid fundamentalism.

The Kenyan Dream and Mwai Kibaki's Re-election

When we got our independence in 1963, there was something leaders of the time liked to call The Kenya Dream and what a wonderful dream that was. Modern day politicians also talk about it, the loudest being those in the Orange Democratic Movement. The Kenyan Dream was essentially a victory against Poverty, Ignorance and Disease. While I agree there is more to good leadership than a fight against these three evils, the success of such a fight can form a sound basis for assessment of any regime. It therefore makes sense to analyze how Kibaki fared in this front and whether his performance played a role in his re-election. There is a very interesting statistic that I kept hearing when I was coming through (probably when in fifth standard in 1992); that 56% of Kenyans live below the poverty line. Politicians like to quote these statistics to advance their cause but the truth is that Kenya’s poverty index used to be 56% in the ‘90s. Kibaki took over when it was 50% and he finished his first term when it was 46%. That is not a too shabby performance over five years in my opinion. You cannot talk about poverty eradication without looking at the state of the economy. Mwai Kibaki’s government oversaw a period of high economic growth. Of course there are those who believe otherwise, but then we can’t all agree on all things. Angola, Ethiopia and Mozambique are the only African countries that recorded higher growth rates than Kenya in 2006/2007. When one considers what the ‘growth’ was five years ago, they cannot fail to appreciate the gains. There is an argument that Kenyan latter day economists like to advance that the trickle down effect is just not there. Any Poverty report says that poverty has reduced in the last five years. What then exactly do they mean when they say the average person does not feel the economic gains? Where do the people of Kenya take the money they used to pay primary school Development levies with? If people used to ‘fund raise’ to erect classrooms and village dispensaries, where are they taking that money today? The CDF was a good idea and the fact that the economy can support that without a sweat is good news to everyone. If healthcare is cheaper than it was six years ago, doesn’t that mean the Kenyan people are either saving money or spending on stuff they used to live without? It is just plain dishonest for anybody to claim that the economic growth statistics are a fabrication. What that basically means is that the government has made some strides in the war against poverty. The War against ignorance; Mwai Kibaki’s administration’s biggest success story is the free primary education. Bill Clinton said in 2003 his biggest wish was to meet Mwai Kibaki and thank him for making elementary school education accessible to every Kenyan child. Since the introduction of the free primary school education, school enrolment rates have shot up. Many children were being locked out of school due to the high fees. Today, Kenya boasts the oldest primary school pupil in the world. He had stayed out of school for almost a century and in my opinion, there is no better way of proving that you are fighting ignorance than having an 80 year old man enroll in class one. It has been argued that the quality of education has been compromised but to be fair everything comes with some side effects. Even so, the deterioration of standards is yet to be proved because performance in the national exams has continued to improve every year. The country’s literacy level as well as general education attainment is something we are all proud of. The last aspect of the Kenyan Dream is victory over disease. When Mwai Kibaki’s government came to power in 2003, the HIV prevalence rate was 14.2%. It was 6.7% in 2004. 6.1% in 2005, 5.9% in 2006 and 5.1% in 2007. These figures were given by Alloys Orago, the Director of National Aids Control Council in August this year. It would be very selfish for the government to claim solo credit for this decline, but no one can rule out their role either. The fact that HIV/AIDS victims can access ARVs at no cost in public hospitals is one of the biggest reasons for the decline. Healthcare is less costly than it was six years ago. The general health of Kenyans is better and that is why we are talking about a life expectancy of 55 up from 49. That means we are not doing badly in that front either. I know that some of these statistics may not make sense to a lot of people, but honestly how else would you assess the country’s situation without looking at them? These were noble goals that our founding politicians set and Kibaki should be rightly proud for being in charge at a time when all indicators show a favorable trend. Americans did not think very highly of President Bill Clinton, but when they looked at statistics on unemployment rate, inflation, economic wellbeing, home ownership, and welfare roles, they started seriously considering him as one of the country’s five best presidents ever. When we ask ourselves what it is we expect a president to do, we will agree that it is to provide leadership on things that matter to the governed. When you report to a right thinking Kenyan that there is better business environment, there is more money in circulation which they can get if they work hard, healthcare is better accessible and more affordable and that their children are better educated than they were six years ago, you will definitely see them smile. There are other areas of governance that must be assessed before passing a verdict on Kibaki’s regime. These include expansion of the democratic space to allow people of normal intelligence like Najib Balala to make fun of the president and his family. There are other things like his wife’s attempt at intimidating the press, the failure by his government to midwife the writing and adoption of a new constitutional dispensation acceptable to a majority of the people of Kenya and his war against corruption and insecurity. His performance in some of these aspects of governance was ‘outstanding’, ‘average’ on others and ‘outright failure’ in others. After considering all these, I think it’s fair to give the president a general score of 6.5/10. That in my opinion is a score that merits some reward. It is not too bad if you ask me and I am sure some people considered some of these things when casting their vote. “The World is full of willing people; some willing to work and others willing to let them.”