May We Dwell In Unity....

Read online comments about the IDP situation in Kenya, by Kenyans and it is like a window into the psyche of a mad evil being. Kenyans have been turned into an uncontrollable mass of hate, prejudiced and stereotyping lot- all because the government has chosen, either by design or mere incompetence, to ‘not be government’.

The Kenya government seems to be in control of nothing. The judiciary is sleeping, the Executive is on some kind of vacation, and the legislature?- well we all know what the legislature is busy doing. In the mean time, poor ordinary Kenyans are lonely, cold and hungry. They have become so deprived that they have lost all sense of ‘human-ness’ let alone the patriotism reminisced by Ngugi wa Thiong’o recently. Ordinary Kenyans are now grabbing at each other’s throats desperately fighting for basic survival while the politicians are busy pouring ethnic vitriol into the wounds of inter-ethnic suspicions.

The law seems very helpless. It seems like there is no law in Kenya at all except if you are a government minister and you misplace your laptop- then the whole police force will be mobilized to torture all those that may have some information about it. And the laptop will be recovered. The same police force cannot find drugs traffickers who traffic in the hundreds of tonnes. They cannot be trusted to ensure security for Kenyans as they go about their lives. They cannot apprehend the perpetrators of inter-ethnic hatred or the warmongers amongst us who, with tongue in cheek, stoke age-old fires sparked by abject poverty and deprivation. But then again, maybe they need a command to do all these, from whoever commanded them to search and retrieve the DPM’s laptop, and probably that command has not been issued. Selective justice.

The government is still in the slumber of the old Constitutional order. This is the age of zero impunity. The government has no business poring over the map of Kenya looking for land to resettle people who were bonfide landowners prior to 2008 and did not lawfully transfer these parcels to their current occupiers! The government’s job is to facilitate the safe return to these lands and to sort out the landless ones with the vast public land in its control. Regional or ethnic statements to the effect that people from certain regions may not be settled in other regions are simply a contravention of the Constitution and should be treated as such- infringement of the law. Entertaining such sentiments is encouraging impunity.

It is my submission that had the government acted like the government it was supposed to be; we would not have fallen so deep into the pit we find ourselves in now. We would not have so many issues to grapple with now- basic issues like food and shelter! In a nutshell, the government has been a total betrayal of the aspirations of ‘mwananchi wa kawaida’. The reason why we need to go back to the drawing boards and find selfless individuals who can be trusted to guide our nation to reap the fruits of our labour now and not 2030, or those other future dates. Our prayer to the government is ‘….give us this day our daily livelihood, and don’t forgive our trespasses…for we will not forgive yours..’

hypocrisy at its best

....Interesting to note that the government of Kenya has acquired one million hectares for wildlife conservation in three regions that have fought tooth and nail to frustrate the same government's intention to acquire thousands of hectares to resettle displaced Kenyans.
This says alot about Kenyans or their government (politicians).

Lest We Forget...

The Ocampo 6 obeyed the summonses, presented themselves before the judges and identified themselves for the mentioning of their cases. They probably enjoyed the scenery in Europe, enjoyed their vast wealth, be it ill-gained or otherwise, others may have spent the misappropriated taxpayer shillings in whichever needs they deemed necessary and they are now jetting back into the country. Pundits have been processing the intricate details raised during the proceedings in The Hague and pondering the different likely outcomes, scenarios and implications.

Strangely, Kenyan style, we manage to focus our national lens away from the real issue and instead get set to discuss peripheral issues, non-issues and innuendoes.  We, as Kenyans refuse to contemplate the charges facing these gentlemen and to ask ourselves how we got there in the first place.

The charges listed among others; murder, rape, persecution (all in large scale) and the victims are people we knew. They are people we are living with and some of us are still struggling with the results of these heinous acts.

In every Kenyan’s lips should be the statement “ Never again! ” But the prevailing mood is that we are ready for part two of it all. What with politicians planning and scheming plots to marginalise and lock out opponents in the forthcoming elections.

The unmentioned effect of the actions by the politicians are; feelings of disenfranchisement by the communities whose leaders are locked out and we all know what could happen if communities feel an election has been blatantly stolen. Those in the Ocampo 6 know this scenario all too well, yet…..

The government which has been burning midnight oil trying to convince the international community that it can handle its own legal issues seems, yet another time, to be in a spell. It seems to be paralysed and incapable of lifting a stick to stop the warmongers and anarchists. No one in government seems to realize that the sole reason two of its agents are among the Ocampo 6 is the fact that there was a government in power when the PEV was raging, but the government either did nothing, did the right thing the wrong way, or did the wrong thing the wrong way.

So the return of the Hague suspects is cause for celebration and thanksgiving, for some. To others it is a statement that God is with the communities, to some it is a signal to shift gears in the putsch for the elimination of other communities’ voting power. The whole country’s attention seems transfixed on these parochial issues and all seem to have forgotten why or how we got here in the first place.

No one seems to have the solution for our chronic land ownership problems that mostly gets exacerbated by general elections. No one is pondering the pressing problem of resettling the IDPs still in the ‘refugee camps’- all attempts to resolve their problems seem half-hearted and self defeating: why is the government hell bent to purchase land to resettle people who owned land in the first place? Why not resettle them on their original land? Is the application of the law on land ownership partisan? Why do some communities get to decide who can own land in certain parts of the country?- This is impunity and it’s what sent those six to the Hague, let’s not forget that.