Wambua Samm
30 October 2009
Nairobi — The few times Johnnie Carson, the US head of the Bureau of African Affairs, was in town his bark was worse than the bite. Two weeks after his last howl, however, the American was back this week with a vicious bite.
The US had banned some bigwig in the Kibaki-Raila administration from travelling to the country, he announced. Apparently, the victim has ensured that our quest for reform and the fight against corruption are going very far.Backwards.
Inasmuch as I grin from ear to ear whenever a fire is lit under the backsides of anti-reformists, I don't think America's "benevolent imperialism" is helping in the reform agenda. If Obama and Co want real change in Kenya the guys to deny travel visas are President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. OK, Mr Odinga is not constitutionally powerful enough to suppress reform, but he might be persuaded to resume his fire-breathing -- it has always been good for the country.
"One man, one vote! One kilometre, one vote! No kadhi's courts in the constitution!" the decibels hit a deafening pitch last week. Nothing unusual in that, except that it means it's not you but your grand, grandchild who will be governed by the new constitution.
I stand to be corrected, but we have stretched the concept of "ownership" and stakeholding" to ridiculous heights. Our political culture is such that the majority of the citizenry is not sophisticated enough to appreciate the role of the Constitution in the nation-state.
Come the referendum and most of us will accept or reject the draft on the basis of what they hear from politicians. Throw in the 2012 General Election and you have a repeat of the Orange and Banana madness -- actually a dress rehearsal for a second round of post-election blood letting.
Crises are known to jolt societies into making great constitutions. I don't think we are any different. Still on matters constitutional, must Nzamba Kitonga and fellow experts move to some tourist outlet to do their work? The fellows can save us a lot of money by pinning a DON'T DISTURB sign on their office doors. The GSU could also be engaged to keep busybodies away.
How? By engaging the City Hall thugs and policemen who run Nairobi's unroadworthy recovery trucks (breakdowns in Kenyan English) to recover the limousines from the bull-necked ministers. Where money is involved these roughnecks will even tow away their own cars. ----------
For the umpteenth time, I say there is nothing wrong with politics. But Kenyans seem to have their own definition of the calling; which is why it is no longer ironical for Andrew Ligale and his team to urge politicians not to politicise the fixing of constituency and administrative boundaries. You don't tell fish to keep off water. If gerrymandering is not politics, I'm definitely a Martian. ----------
Now that the fastest man on earth is in town, he could do us a favour -- like giving the Kenya national 100 metres champion, Kipkemey Soy, a five-metre headstart and beating him in a race. It would mean tonnes of publicity for Kenya, Usain Bolt himself and the sport. Please, Usain do it. We have named matatus and children after you.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
