Every situation should present moments for reflection, correction and learning for any thinking creature. As a nation, Kenya has had a myriad of these to build upon and to mature politically. The recent summonses to appear in the international court in The Hague for one Uhuru Muigai Kinyata, would not miss a space in this list.
Loud noises were generated around the issue by the political class, each trying to appear most loyal to the presidency and few having the nation in their thoughts. They did what they do best- make every opportunity that arises an issue about them, and only for their benefit. So they shouted themselves hoarse about how the European masters are disrespecting the nation of Kenya and her presidency, how Mr Kinyata would not be let to take off from the airport by the demonstrating, loving multitudes of citizenry, how they needed to remind the said masters that Kenya is a sovereign state, etc.
So they mobilised and accompanied Mr Kinyata to The Netherlands where they proceeded to demonstrate to the ‘wazungus’ that they are a respectable people, with a respectable leader and that they deserved the respect. Unfortunately they could only demonstrate to the police employed to guard the court and the few passers-by who may not even have been aware of what was happening in the vicinity. Only a handful of them were allowed in the courtroom and we can only hope they were able to articulate their displeasure.
Their colleagues outside the court were only able to express their dissent by varied street theatrics, dressing, singing in their languages which only themselves and fellow Kenyans would understand and just generally being unruly. They did not even realise that their respected leader who was inside, facing the court and was not even expected to raise one word of protest for himself.
Be that as it may, the whole incident presented a case in point which ought not be blurred by the hullabaloo from the sideshows.
In the recent documented chronicles of political happenings in Africa, a sitting president handed over the reigns of power to another individual and stepped out of the country. This is now a historical fact. It may not be forgotten to those older observers that Milton Obote of Uganda lost his seat while he attended a summit in Singapore, and more recent in Kenya, former president Daniel Arap Moi would declare that there was no one else fit to lead Kenya- this while at the airport being welcomed by his ministers including his vice president, from a foreign trip. President Uhuru signed himself out of power and flew out of the country as ‘a mwananchi wa kawaida’!
Cleared at the departure terminals like everyone else flying out that day, boarding a commercial flight with other passengers and left.
On returning, Mr Kinyata who had by then re-acquired his official status as president made a number of statements and one of them in particular was my take. He stated that Kenyans need to trust each other and that we should forget our ‘ukikuyu’, ‘ujaluo’ and ‘ukalenjin’, that all that is ‘bure kabisa!’ He went on to say that we should trust one another the way he trusted his brother Ruto and left him to take care of his office, that we should realise that when that other person is in control they are taking care of all of us.
I would like to echo these sentiments because I know we as Kenyans have so far fallen into the pit of mistrust and generalised misplaced mutual suspicions that we even mistrust our own clergy if they don’t share our mother-tongue. We have nationalised the notion that unless one of our own is holding a particular office then we are never going to benefit from the services that office delivers. That is the reason we tried to capture it in our constitution that we need ethnic balance in government. I am yet to see the definition of the said term ‘balance’.
We cannot accept the fact that we can get adequate services from strangers yet we are so trustful of foreigners! Simply illogical and preposterous!
We have locked out the fact that in any given circumstance, there will be a person of a different ethnic descent holding a public office as a public servant. It is a calling for all Kenyans to trust one another and know that those servants are not their kinsmen's guardian-in-chief, custodians or trustees of their ethnic populace, appointed to grab all resources and deliver to their peoples.
We desperately need to get out of this mindset and embrace the fact that most able bodied Kenyans are appointed for their expertise and are charged with delivery of the said expertise to the nation as a whole.
President Uhuru Muigai Kinyata will have scored a hat-trick in my term, if he qualifies these sentiments by going after public looters and malfeasances with the urgency he displayed that day. Go get the perpetrators of Anglo Leasing, the public land thieves of Lamu, Karen, Mau forest, sweep out all speculators pitching camp in Turkana county, prosecute all county governors and constituency financial mis-managers. In fact, if he clears any one of the above listed from the ‘pending file’, he will have made a complete legacy worth my praise.
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