Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The Noose Tightens, Uhuru, Ruto on Their Own

There is a very thin line between EXECUTIVE INDIFFERENCE and leadership fraud. The buck must stop with the CEO when the company he is entrusted and paid to watch over comes down tumbling. But not in Kenya.

Those making noise and taking sides must be strangers to Kibaki's political modus operandi. When the heat becomes unbearable, Emilio never helps anybody fight his political battles once you hit your-sell-by date. Not even if you staked you head for him. If in doubt Martha and octogenarian ambassador Muchemi are living testimonies. And so UK and Bill will soon find out that they are on their own.

The good news is that when The Hague Express finally leaves the station, it will acquire its own momentum that will only stop when Kenya is eventually cleansed of bravado, brinkmanship and above all else IMPUNITY.

Political sell-by-date
Prof Alston came and declared his unflattering verdict on the three musketeers. Well, they vilified him but look who is smiling from ear to ear now. Ali is cooling his heels at Posta, Wako's lips are fatigued from plastic smiles and next will be CJ Gicheru. The noose is tightening quite fast.

Prof Luis Moreno Ocampo has set his own agenda and demanding that the script be followed to the letter. While his actions would smack of neo-colonialism to apologists, many Kenyans are cheering him on for taking on the might and doing what they wish but can never do given the suffocating impunity.

So is it the beginning of the end for kings and princes of impunity? But again this is Kenya and king Louis XVI may choose to ignore the impending heat while his wife Marie Antoinette asks Kenyans to eat cake if they cannot afford githeri?

Well, the die is cast and the real fire and curse of the three dread vowels A+O+O is here.

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Curse and Fury of A+O+O, Pride in Poverty

Why do hitherto brilliant brains MUTATE into porridge once in government? Lord Acton must have been a genius with his time-tested adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely. A look into our cabinet would leave the late Rogue Ambassador Smith Hempstone turning in his grave for wasted efforts to protect pretenders for champions of good governance and democracy.

So it appears Obama's utter contempt for Kibaki's protest letter is to send an Assistant Minister to deal with Kenya. And our chief diplomat Wetangula has threatened to reciprocate the humiliation to President Kibaki. Maybe Renneberger will be declared persona non grata soon.

But Wetangula appears to know something we don't when he names Fidel Castro and Ahmednedijan's trip to UN despite their respective hostility America. His comparison leaves you wondering who is the Kenya's equivalent of the two and if he is a target of BAN.

It must have sounded intellectually stimulating and sense of pride for Weta to mention Nairobi, Geneva, New York and Vienna in the same sentence. We are sovereign and independent, so what? The US are doing what ordinary Kenyans would wish to do were it not for saffocating IMPUNITY. Any form of pressure to release us from the yoke of impunity is more than welcome. Well, apologists will rush to the next rooftop to shout neo-colonialism.

The US pressure for reforms has been reduced to the predictably PNU vs ODM tiff. The hitherto champions of good governance shifted the goalposts immediately they tasted power. As one PKW noted here in the previous post the political foot is now squarely stuck in the other foot. Flashback to 2000 and see Kibaki and the present brigade lambasting Moi on imperial presidency and now?

Edible sovereignty
The latest poverty index has shamed the national lie about phenomenal growth during the 2002-7 period. The increase in poorer Kenyans is once more living testimony of the resulting embarrassment of living a national lie. Anything premised on this vice is simply unsustainable.

Wetangula and Mutula's rush to see every criticism directed at the ruling class as an agenda to embarrass the president smacks of sycophancy of yore. Speak of hollow pride from a beggar who cannot feed himself while living in darkness.

Meanwhile the pressure is on and the lid may not hold it any more when Ocampo lands within our shores next week.