By Dorcas Sarkozy
The Return of Fanya Fujo Uone as a Governing Tool.
So it has come to this:
The Uhuru Kenyatta-commanded Kenyan law enforcement and security personnel frog-marching and assaulting young college students exercising their freedom of speech rights and a sycophantic legislature rubber-stamping the whims of an insecure regime desperately struggling to remain relevant and legitimate.
Let’s be clear, these two machinations originated from the dark recesses of the current State House – the most corrupt and fast-becoming most despotic in Kenya’s history.
Yet the foregoing notwithstanding, there are some pockets of the country that thought (and still think) that “Uhunye was/is so cool” and “hip”; that he is a “good man surrounded by ‘bad’ people”, “a God-fearing God-chosen leader”.
To repeat myself and re-state the obvious: Kenyans have been had – AGAIN!
What is even more Stockholm Syndrome-esque is the fact that the same pockets of the country, some whose sons and daughters are among the students who were bloodied by the marauding band of security personnel, are poised to vote for the same person who unleashed the troops on their children come October 26th or whenever the tyranny of the majority in Parliament and/or IEBC decides to conduct the re-election!
On the other hand, it should not surprise anyone given the 2013 “election” of two individuals accused of committing atrocities worse than the forces they now command – crimes-against-humanity!
Now with the ruling that bars the Supreme Court from annulling an election “without a recount of votes” and another one “ensuring election results are concurrently transmitted manually and electronically”, Kenya is poised to have a “Cabal for Life” presidency – most likely between the two most populous communities and whoever the incumbency chooses to rig or ballot-stuff in to office.
Plainly put, this move by the majority Jubilee legislature is a prelude to ballot-stuffing and vote rigging – plain and simple.
The president and his deputy know that.
The MPs know that.
More importantly, Kenyans, regardless of their political persuasion, know that!
Sometimes I wish Raila would just say “eff it” and leave Kenyans to their own device/s. Maybe then those who are hell-bent on denying others their democratic and civil rights will appreciate (a) what they have as a country – relative to say, Somalia or Myanmar or the Philippines (b) what the man RAO, for all his faults, has done to get them the socio-political space they currently take for granted – relative to say Uganda, Russia or our latest BFF China and (c) what they, the relatively weak, disempowered and un-connected majority Kenyans, stand to lose once RAO exits the scene and the current leadership and related and/or co-opted remnants do not have to worry about a counter-weight; an opposition of the man’s heft and gravitas.
Some of us are so wrapped up in our ethnic cocoons that we cannot see the forest for the trees.
Like the “Red State” Americans who voted into office the incompetent white supremacist Donald Trump because they “wanted their country back”, Jubilants are willing to cut their collective noses to spite their faces because they have convinced themselves that “Raira wiru nefa be plesident!”
Jubilants, like Americans who voted for Trump, are directly responsible for empowering the corrupt, incompetent and insecure leadership now overseeing the slow but steady erosion of the constitutional protections afforded individuals and institutions that serve and protect them from the tyranny of the majority.
Make no mistake about it, the brutal bloody assaults on the university students by the jittery but malleable law enforcement and security apparatus, the power grab by a power-hungry majority in Parliament, not because it is good for the country’s democracy, but because it ensures their (incumbency) stay in power, will eventually come back to haunt Kenyans and their country.
The success of the world’s foremost democracies that Kenyans love to cite albeit conveniently – UK, US, West Germany, Scandinavian countries, India etc. – lie, not in individuals, but in the strength, competence and independence of their various branches, institutions and agencies of said governments not to mention their fidelity to the constitution.
A strong and independent legislature, judiciary, law enforcement etc. is the perfect antidote to a power-hungry and insecure executive.
Unfortunately for Kenya, two of its main branches of government – Parliament and executive – are controlled by the one party – Jubilee. The president’s party is determined to usurp and centralize power, not because of any altruistic or for-the-greater-good aspiration/s, but because the third branch of government, SCOK, caught both with their hands in the cookie jar i.e. attempting to rig an election!
Ashamed and embarrassed, the presidency unleashed the troops it commands onto protesting college students in a textbook example of disproportionate response to perceived violation/s of the law.
For its part, the legislature voted to curb the powers of SCOK and facilitate the stuffing of ballot boxes and rigging of elections.
Combined, these two moves by Jubilee are a slippery slope towards despotism and authoritarianism – period!
And Raila Odinga is the one who is “power hungry”?
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