RE: Why Kenya’s Kleptocrats, Kakistocrats and Kratocrats cannot wait for Raila Odinga to retire from Politics.
By Dorcas Sarkozy
There is this popular narrative peddled mostly in the Mt. Kenya/Central parts of the country that “if Raila Odinga retires from politics, Kenya will ‘excel’ and ‘rise’ to the heights ‘God has in store for it’…”
It is a feel-good storyline much like the “Kenya Rising” or Kenya is a “sovereign and independent pan-African nation”, “God-fearing nation” led by a “God-chosen president – Uhuru Kenyatta” – storylines designed to demonize the former Prime Minister even as it detracts from the very real darkness that IS Kenya’s presidents – past and present.
The portrayal of a “Kenya rising once Raila retires from the country’s political scene” also has a Stockholm Syndrome-like attribute to it that further underscores the now-permanent insidiousness of ethnic chauvinism and tribalism. I say this because the very people who have BEEN on the receiving end of the brutality, kleptocratic, kakistocratic and now kratocratic ways of ALL four governments/presidencies of Kenya are the same ones willing to lose their lives to return the same avaricious brutes back into office – this as evidenced by the support they offered the regimes of Jomo, Moi, Kibaki and now Uhuru.
To state the obvious, nowhere in that list of the country’s (past) chief executives does Raila’s name appear unless one points to his tenure as Prime Minister – during the Coalition Government.
And even then, as evidenced by an observation offered by Mwai Kibaki’s former Economic Advisor Hiroyuki Hino in the book “Ethnic Diversity and Economic Instability in Africa”, the power – military and economic – rested with Mr. Kibaki – because “ministries and states agencies (were) packed with (Kibaki’s) fellow tribals, particularly in strategic institutions such as Treasury, ministries of State, Land, security agencies and state corporations” – effectively neutering the PM’s power and influence during Kibaki’s second term.
The same tribalization of the government agencies and institutions occurred under Jomo and Arap Moi.
We now have a president (Uhuru Kenyatta) whose political mentor Daniel Arap Moi presided over a 25-year-old reign of terror that included massive theft of public funds that almost bankrupted the country and persistent abuse of human rights as embodied by the creation of the dreaded Nyayo House torture chamber and police brutality, political assassinations of which Robert Ouko’s was the most prominent, disappearances, whimsical amendments to the Constitution to serve the interests of an equally whimsical executive. And unsurprisingly, the country’s 4th president must have taken copious notes while under Moi’s tutelage. Consider the following report card of Uhuru’s past four years:
– Nepotism/tribalism – Check!
– Theft of public funds – Check!
– Abuse of human rights – Check!
– Police brutality – Check!
– Assassinations/murders – Check!
– Whimsical amendments of the Constitution – Check!
Given the foregoing list, I am really curious to hear/read how exactly things will change, ostensibly for the “better” once RAO is no longer actively engaged in the country’s political discourse and the military and “divine God-chosen” powers and avarice of Uhuru Kenyatta and his family are left unchecked.
And no, the country’s parliament has just proven that it does not have the huevos to stand up to the executive let alone the moral authority to claim the higher ground!
Will theft of public funds – oftentimes emanating from Uhuru’s own Office of the President AND occurring within his own family miraculously cease?
What of theft at the various departments – NYS, Devolution & Planning, Afya House etc. Will RAO’s absence from the scene see an end to Waigurugate or NyoKihanyagate?
Assassinations? Extra-judicial killings? Eurobond?
What of manipulation/rigging/ballot-stuffing during elections?
How will Kenya “rise juu mpaka iwe ‘developed’ kama wale countries majuu” if close to 30% of its GDP is lost to corruption and there is no one with Raila’s gumption to (a) call out the theft like he did with Waigurugate and Eurobond and (b) rally the rest of the country against the powerful/connected perpetrators?
I, for one, am not fooled.
Those waiting for, make that salivating over the prospects of Raila’s retirement are doing so because they want to steal and violate the country’s laws without someone calling them out – publicly so!
That is what the BS over waiting for “Kenya to ‘rise juu’ once Raila Odinga retires from politics” is all about and nothing else.
To paraphrase a popular song now doing the rounds:
“These people want to steal unencumbered” and that’s why they cannot wait for Raila Odinga to retire!
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