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Kenya’s 2012 Presidential hopelessness

By: HENRY GICHABA
Published July 11, 2009

When I campaigned for Raila Odinga in the run up to the ill-fated 2007 general election, it was in the faith that he would make a better President for Kenya than Mr. Mwai Kibaki. Sadly, our vote was rigged in favor of the incumbent Kibaki, thereby shredding the country into mayhem, absurdity and a human slaughterhouse.

Thanks to the post-election orgies, we placed on Raila Odinga the insignia of leadership as Prime Minister in tandem with the Koffi Annan led pact. To crown it all, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and its affiliates make the parliamentary majority.

Premier Odinga, one of Kenya’s foremost executives, represents a failed attempt at leadership devoid of public service spirit.

Little wonder destitute Internally Displaced Persons still wallow in homelessness and absolute penury since 2007. Odinga and his ODM parliamentarians have the wherewithal to enact laws, to resettle our brothers and sisters, now refugees in their own country. Nonetheless, we are yet to see a motion in parliament seeking to address the resettlement of IDPs as we prefer to call our internal refugees.

Odinga’s leadership on the question of IDPs has been at best dismal. Like his colleague, Kibaki, and parliament, he has been blissfully silent. It is not clear from what platform Mr. Odinga wishes to seek votes as Kenya’s fourth president. I am not sure if the PM understands that the role of government is to protect its people from internal and external insecurity (read cause for IDPS).

We elect our supreme legislative body, the Parliament, for the express purpose of protecting us from executive profligacy. My stand is not farfetched. Our parliamentarians are super leeches, who impose taxes that bog us ceaselessly. Together with our religious leaders, they have diverted tax money to aggrandize personal accounts. Yes, taxation without adequate representation!

Ironically, no member of Kenya’s parliament pays taxes. As our mothers, the matoke/omena/sukumawiki sellers are taxed on their pittance after a long day in the scorching sun of Kibera, Othaya and Keroka, their MPs rake in millions untaxed.

My deep concern is that Odinga and Kibaki preside over a thieving government, blissfully glorifying endemic corruption with full support of parliament.

Religious leaders on whom Kenyans depend for spiritual guidance teach that this government exists by the will of God. And they gleefully deploy the “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” tune. Indifferent to our suffering, they urge us to pray for a bunch of vampires that constitute the government. Such doctrines negate the moral code of the Church and betray the notion that any power in heaven or on earth worthy to be saluted is one that breaks the chains to liberate the people of God.

Odinga promised Kenyans in his 2007 campaigns to finish the stalled constitutional review, end corruption and initiate development projects to breathe life into our dying infrastructure. Unfortunately, the son of Ramogi seems undecided on what to do in his current position. For the record, Raila Odinga’s 17 years as MP for Langata have not been very productive or of any practical use to his constituents. Dimensions of Kibera slums have enlarged and its residents have been buried deeper in graves of absolute decadence and mounds of garbage.

The other day Raila Odinga gave us a recipe for the food he plans to cook for us as president if he is lucky to win elections against another tribal nincompoop, say, Uhuru Kenyatta in 2012. He took his sister from work as professor of chemistry at the University of Nairobi and sent her as a consular officer to California. This is nepotism at its best.

Yet Face book, Twitter, You tube and other blogs are abuzz with people positioning for free manna of 2012, promising us better leadership.

Balderdash! Absolute nonsense! Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta! Mr. Rutto! Martha Karua! Kalonzo Musyoka! Give us a break! Kenyans, let us fish for 2012 leaders outside of the established Aristocratic feudal estates of Kenya.

Reach Henry Gichaba at Hgichaba@eafricainfocus.com