Dorothy Kweyu
19 January 2008
opinion
Nairobi — An item in Tuesday's edition of the Daily Nation's Cutting Edge made interesting reading.
Commenting with tongue in cheek on the dramatic return in Mombasa of stolen property following word that a deadly curse had been pronounced against the looters unless they returned the booty, Ernest Moturi quipped: "Can't the same curse be turned against those said to have stolen the election so that the crisis threatening to tear the country apart is defused immediately?"
In a telephone interview with the Saturday Nation, the organising secretary of the Council of Imams and Preachers, Mr Mohamed Khalifa, dismissed as superstition the halbadiri that had driven panic-stricken looters to return the stolen property.
But he affirmed belief in divine retribution in Muslims' lives. "We are required to pray directly to Allah with arms raised up to Him if we feel aggrieved rather than resort to superstition," he said.
And he posed: "If halbadiri really worked, why can't they use it to protect their property instead of waiting until it has been stolen?"
Although superstition rules many people's lives, Mr Moturi's remark provokes deeper reflection vis-à-vis the post-election chaos and, above all, its genesis.
Fundamental questions
In a country where Christians are said to account for some 80 per cent of the population, fundamental questions arise about Kenyan Christianity and its practice.
For instance, would the country have plunged into political and social chaos if the leadership, which is largely Christian, had practised Christianity before, during and after the December 27 General Election? This is a pertinent question, given that Christianity emerged as a major campaign issue in the countdown to the disputed elections, that saw Mr Emilio Mwai Kibaki declared president and hurriedly sworn into office.
Disagreement over the election arose from the perception among ODM and various election observers that the tallying of the presidential votes was twisted in favour of Mr Kibaki.
The Electoral Commission of Kenya said result forms from some constituencies were altered and that ballots cast in Maragwa, in Central province, exceeded the registered voters.
In Molo, Rift Valley, the result read out at the election headquarters was higher than the figure reportedly announced at the constituency.
Allegations that the election was rigged, or simply put, falsified, raise fundamental issues regarding the perpetrators of the rigging and the beneficiaries.
The vote count was manipulated at the ECK's tallying headquarters at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, under the watch of Mr Samuel Kivuitu - a committed Christian - and the beneficiary was the Party of National Unity (PNU) leader, Mr Kibaki, a regular worshipper at Nairobi's Catholic Holy Family Basilica.
A few days after declaring Mr Kibaki winner - an act that sparked spontaneous violent protests across the country - Mr Kivuitu shocked the world when he stated that the leadership of PNU and that of ODM Kenya had pressured him to release the results.
This he had done before verifying the vote tally - an exercise that he had submitted to on the eve of the controversial declaration of Mr Kibaki as president when the first signs that massive rigging was taking place at KICC emerged.
The intriguing thing about Mr Kivuitu's confession is that the main protagonists in the tragic drama are himself, Mr Kibaki of PNU and ODM-K's Mr Kalonzo Musyoka. Intriguing because Mr Kivuitu, whose act handed Mr Kibaki a controversial second term, and Mr Musyoka, who has been rewarded with the vice-presidency for agitating for the release of the results before they could be verified are both committed or born-again Christians.
Although religion should be a private matter between individuals and whatever deity they adore, the countdown to the December 27 elections threw all that out of the window when Christianity became a major campaign tool and the main contenders for the presidency had to lay bare their religious credentials.
While Mr Kibaki and Mr Musyoka scored highly on the Christian platform, under the backing of the Catholic and Baptist churches, ODM leader Raila Odinga was largely perceived to be a heathen.
Mr Odinga found himself virtually under siege and had to go to great lengths to prove to voters that he was not just a Christian, but a baptised Anglican.
As if Kenya had suddenly revised Chapter V of the Constitution, which protects fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, including freedom of conscience, of expression and of assembly and association, the Lang'ata MP -probably because of his memorandum of understanding with Muslims - became the target of vilification.
"Can this man be trusted?" became his opponents' mantra in the hunt for votes as the propaganda war escalated to unprecedented heights.
Three weeks after the ill-fated elections, Christians - especially those who craved God-fearing leadership - must now stand up to demand exemplary leadership. And, since it seems evident that President Kibaki and his VP, Mr Musyoka, are unlikely to own up to any wrong-doing, which would require restitution before they are absolved, their respective pastors must now stand up to be counted.
Christians are craving to hear the pastors' prophetic voices in the fashion of Elijah, who confronted Ahab and warned him of dire consequences after he schemed Naboth's killing in order to steal his vineyard.
They are craving to see their religious leaders don the mantle of the prophet Nathan, who courageously confronted the mighty King David and warned him of God's wrath after he schemed the death of Uriah the Hittite in order to steal his wife Bathsheba.
Even if the politicians fail to wear the sackcloth and repent over their role in the rigging that has contributed to the state of anarchy Kenya is fast degenerating into, the Christians will know that their leaders are not without shepherds.
But if the clergy do not rise to the occasion to offer spiritual direction to a political leadership, whose conscience has clearly been dulled by the allure of wealth and grandeur of power beyond hollow calls for peace, then they should forever keep their peace.
I say "hollow" because peace calls so far have been confined to addressing the grave aftermath of the rigged elections instead of attacking its genesis, namely the blatant irregularities in vote tallying, which are no longer a secret.
In the absence of a clear voice of conscience that appeals to the hearts of the estimated 28 million Kenyans, questions about the moral integrity of our leadership will continue to be asked.
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