Why Uhuru shouldn’t forget his days in Opposition

By KIPKOECH TANUI

“Even savages, fools and animals can claim supremacy on the basis of numbers but this does not mean they are right.”

That is what late Michael Kijana Wamalwa told the Eighth Parliament when Kanu deployed its numerical strength in the House to take over public watchdog committees, including Public Accounts and Public Investments.

Carry this quote with you because we shall come to its relevance when look at consequence of Jubilee’s control of the House committees, something that has led to a walkout from the probing teams by Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) this week.

It was also this amendment that for the first time in history President Uhuru Kenyatta, would after 2002 elections, become Kenya’s first Leader of Official Opposition who wasn’t Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson.

At the end you will connect the dotted lines between what Kanu did, how it later hurt its chairman, with what is happening between Jubilee and CORD. Even if the rules say so, Jubilee should be magnanimous in the House for one day it may find itself in the Opposition, and it will be treated in the same way by another coalition.

As I read in some press release in the office a few minutes ago, the next election is just 51 months away. See, we Kenyans begin jostling for seats in the coming election the moment we conclude another!

We must acknowledge here, before we go back to the story of Kanu and the amendments, that the authors of latest amendments, weren’t solely Jubilee MPs, given that at the time they were made, Jubilee wasn’t in existence. However, as we know most of the MPs in Kibaki’s Party of National Unity then are the ones in Uhuru’s Jubilee today.

In fact, Jubilee members argue the amendments made on January 9 this year, were authored by CORD in the mistaken belief they would be in government. I am not sure about this claim but I leave it to your good judgment. 

Kanu’s trick on the amendments far back then was simple; marshal the numbers to amend the Standing Orders to remove unconditional dominance of Opposition in these committees, which exist solely to keep the government of the day in check.

Kanu, led by its most hawkish quartet – Prof George Saitoti, Mr Joseph Kamotho, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka and Mr Nicholas Biwott – must have then been convinced it would never be in the Opposition benches.

So in Jogoo’s wisdom, which was wind-assisted by its numerical strength, was to have the seats in these committees shared out by parties on the basis of the number of seats parties have in Parliament. In the repealed House rules, the leader of the party with the biggest number of seats after the one ruling, would automatically chair PAC. This was the most important committee as it ploughed through government expenditure, and was the automatic choice for dealing with mega-million scandals such as Goldenberg.

A little background is important here; Kanu diehards were unhappy with two offices. The first one was that of the Auditor and Controller General, which for many years was led by a silent operator called D.G. Njoroge. The other was PAC, which perused DG’s reports and harangued those adversely mentioned, whose party you can guess.

So the PAC had either to be punished or controlled.

The deeper meaning

Past holders of the PAC top seat are Kenneth Matiba, Oginga Odinga, Kijana Wamalwa, and Kibaki. When Uhuru’s turn came, Kibaki’s National Rainbow Coalition had the numbers in PAC, and just marshaled these to humiliate him by giving the seat to Mr Omingo Magara!

I argued a few weeks after Uhuru and Ruto went on a Napoleonic expansion programme, subduing small parties through post-election agreements, that if they kill the opposition then we are cooked. I later took note of Uhuru’s speech during his inauguration that had a line assuring us this would not happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, as Kenyan politicians like addressing us when they want our attention, we must seriously ponder the deeper meaning of a National Assembly in the vast control of one party. It isn’t good for democracy but it is also the choice we made. Add this to the madness of the Tenth Parliament, of weakening the committees by ceding its control to the Executive.

In short, we gave Parliament a blank cheque, just like it is about to do with our salaries, and we should now sit back and see how it will rubber-stamp Jubilee’s programmes and actions. If you question, you will be asked to take a vote and you know which side will win.

Worse still, chairmen of the committees will certainly be from the Opposition as the rules stipulate, but then they will be powerless because of the numerical strength of government side in the committees. But unlike in 1990s, the committees today are more critical because they also vet all top public appointments and Cabinets, and they will also be the interface between the House and Cabinet, since Cabinet Secretaries won’t be sitting in the House.

I sum up with what Kibaki told Kanu during debate on the amendments in that distant past: “You wanted to show how clever you are but you have just proven you are half-clever.

I hope someone in Jubilee Alliance is listening.

The writer is Managing Editor, The County Weekly, at The Standard.

ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke