Huh, a million signatures, why not a million people?

By Dan Okoth

Rules are made for man and not man for the rules. That’s a paraphrase of a biblical quote when Jesus was asked why his disciples had picked grain on the Sabbath. It is a quote worth remembering for the rest of the year as the church calls for fresh elections.

The clerics’ made the call on Wednesday, one day after President Kibaki threatened to sack ‘noisy’ cabinet ministers dissatisfied with the Grand Coalition Government. The calls came two days after vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka claimed that some ministers were stealing public funds to line party pockets ahead of the next general elections.

In their call for fresh elections, the church leaders said Kenyans were tired of "a moribund President and an ineffective Prime Minister", the two main by-products of the National Accord that voters in the December 2007 general election did not envisage.

Previously, religious leaders were united during prayers for fire tragedy victims that the coalition government had failed Kenyans. During the function attended by President Kibaki, Kalonzo and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the church leaders said the government was "abetting corruption".

The church has been silent for a long time. Apart from the mid-February condemnation of the coalition’s top three, little had been heard from the pulpit on Kenyan politics. Clerics who were known to tell the Government the truth, including retired Catholic archbishop Ndingi Mwana ‘a Nzeki, quietly disappeared into the horizon after Kibaki became president seven years ago.

Cardinal Njue has lost his voice with his back and forth since the 2005 referendum campaigns. Under his cardinalship, the pulpit and state lectern have morphed into an unholy come-we-stay.

But it’s not only the Catholic Church that has a sore throat. Since the departure of the Rev Mutava Musyimi into politics, the National Council of Churches (NCCK) has developed chronic political pharyngitis. As if to compliment them, the Rev Musyimi has himself kept silent company in Parliament, croaking no word for the flock he once loudly served. If there is a turncoat for clergymen-turned-politicians, the Rev Musyimi is the fashion guru.

So it is refreshing that the church has finally cleared its throat. Politicians stung by the February rebuke were quick to claim the church and state must remain separate. Kenyans ought to know better. The separation of church and state, as good as that principle remains, was made for man. Our time demands the church to seek action from government, whose face is Kibaki, Raila and Kalonzo.

Those who died in fire tragedies, the victims of grand corruption, the hungry Kenyans who cannot afford maize or pay for fuel, and those killed unlawfully by disciplined forces, are members of churches or mosques. Their religious leaders have a moral duty to demand atonement of their blood from the grand coalition.

So this week, the NCCK begins collecting a million signatures to force the coalition government to call fresh elections. In their opinion, that will help restore proper governance and ensure that "a widely elected President can take charge of affairs of the country". Short of proclaiming lack of trust in the President, NCCK apparently believes Kibaki governs by questionable mandate. The margin by which he was allegedly elected was not "wide enough".

As church leaders will preach, man was not made for the Sabbath. Kenyans too have no contract with the grand coalition Government outside service to wananchi. It may run contrary to what former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, opinion pollsters and politicians say – that the coalition must hold until 2012. How many Kenyans said so and at whose expense?

It defies logic to bind the country to the rafters of poverty, mediocrity and sleaze, while hungry wananchi are shaken down to the last coin. Now that the coalition deal has failed to live up to its mandate, it is time to consider a new deal to serve Kenyans, not the other way round.

The country does not have to bow at the altar of the grand collusion to keeps political parties happy. Kenyans have a choice. A fresh election can right the country, so why not? Critics will argue the country is not ready, and there is no electoral commission. But waiting until 2012 may not guarantee peace, especially if little is being done to right the wrongs that precipitated post-election violence.

And it does not take nuclear physics to set up a new electoral commission. In any case, the church is not calling for fresh elections tomorrow or next week, just a million signatures.

But collecting signatures is not enough. If hunger did not move the beast, neither did Triton or the Kiruki report on the Artur brothers, will a million signatures cause the grand collusion a foul mood?

How about a million Kenyans instead?