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Business Daily (Nairobi)

Kenya: It's Now Up to the Leaders to Save the Country As Time Runs Out

27 February 2008

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editorial

Let us put in bluntly: President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga should stop playing Russian roulette. The time for true statesmanship was yesterday, not today or tomorrow.

This is not a game of who wins, who won, or who lost. It is about the survival of the Kenyan State, the race relations and more importantly how to lay ground for a Second Republic.

Time is running out and options are thinning.

The First Republic was perfect as it lasted. It has reached a sell-by date. The founders of the nation saw through the crafty nature of the British establishment, which wanted to impose kangaroo leadership by protecting its kith and kin.

We have had many problems that emanate from the very crafting of the First Republic. The land distribution patterns advocated via the British Swynerton Plan of 1954 as a gimmick to promote African agriculture has backfired and so have those policies flagged by the last governor, Malcolm McDonald, on land redistribution.

We can go on. But let us face it. Forty plus years after independence, the First Republic has undergone a severe test and been found wanting. The Lancaster House accord, negotiated in the same acrimony, cannot survive and we have to brace ourselves for the Second Republic.

But we do not have to destroy the nation state to build a Second Republic. Both Kibaki and Raila should understand this.

It is a pity that we need a middleman in the name of former UN Secretary -General Kofi Annan to help us fix constitutional matters that can be done without shedding any more blood. US lawyer Thurgood Marshal faced the same test in Lancaster when he helped craft the Bill of Rights for Kenya in a bid to cool tribal tempers.

We are back again to the same spot and we are witnessing a replay of some scenes akin to the 1960, 1962 and 1963 negotiations. History will be harsh on those who derail the process.

We believe that Parliament should be opened quickly to allow debate on crucial matters that require a quick fix. This has been done before and still it can be done if Attorney-General Amos Wako can rise up to the challenge and do his job as the advisor to the Government.

The cherry-picked negotiators do not appear to have muscle to get a middle ground. All because they are trying to hoodwink each other the way Kanu hoodwinked Kadu in Lancaster - only to wait later for its turn in Kenya when Kanu spearheaded he demise of bicameral House.

Such hoodwinking should not happen, for this democracy will only survive if it is about competing ideas and not competing tribes. The First Republic has ended up being about competing tribes and their stake in the Nation State.

The Second Republic must proscribe tribalism, nepotism, and drive us towards equity, stability and wealth creation.

But before we jump to that, both President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga must sit down, the way Jomo Kenyatta and Ronald Ngala sat, and decide on the way forward for the nation.

Kenyatta and Ngala did not leave it to colonial secretary, Reginald Maulding and cherry-pick leaders who cannot agree or had to go out and consult.

They attended the talks, voiced their concerns and disagreed when they could. They also played to the gallery -including Kenyatta's "I have got the British lion by its tail" remark. But even with those sideshows, they showed true statesmanship and did not delay independence.

Kibaki and Raila have the same task. They should lead their flock into the negotiations. For time has run out and emotions are climbing. The current lull could be dangerous.

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