Opinion: Amina defeat blow to Jubilee and not a national tragedy

She has done well for herself and for her country, too. She grew steadily through the ranks in various overseas postings, before returning home. Once here, she has occupied prestigious, but challenging, high level and high profile placements. She has acquitted herself admirably. Even at her lowest ebb, her campaigns against the International Criminal Court, three years ago, remain as the morning dew. PHOTO: COURTESY

Receive greetings from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I arrived here three days ago, in the wake of our Ambassador Amina Mohamed’s defeat in the search for the presidency of the African Union. I am still getting over the debacle, wondering what to make of it. I accept, of course, that life is like that. You win some and lose some. Yet some things just don’t add up.

There was so much high-level commotion at home in the lead up to this humbling fiasco. Like many people in my country, I began to believe it was a closed deal. Victory seemed a matter of course. Our leaders assured us that they had done their homework.

They had visited 52 countries in whirlwind diplomacy across the continent. What remained was to gild victory and deliver it home, from Abyssinia with love.

They threw a super pre-celebration party in Nairobi. They dressed up the ambassador’s head in a crown of glory, amid samplings of rare nectar and ambrosia. And they spent our money. So what went wrong? Where did our continental diplomatic assault fall through the cracks? It is appalling that even some of our trusted friends and neighbouring role models abandoned our ambassador in her hour of need.

Yet the more I ruminate on the matter, the more I wonder whether the fuss was really about Amina. I begin thinking that the agenda was different. The ambassador is a distinguished career diplomat. She has had an illustrious tour of duty.

She has done well for herself and for her country, too. She grew steadily through the ranks in various overseas postings, before returning home. Once here, she has occupied prestigious, but challenging, high level and high profile placements. She has acquitted herself admirably. Even at her lowest ebb, her campaigns against the International Criminal Court, three years ago, remain as the morning dew.

Ultimately, the Addis Ababa flop is not an Amina matter. The ambassador is only the soft target that must take a beating on behalf of her country and especially on behalf of the Jubilee Government. I of course continue to take judicious note that we no longer talk of the Government of Kenya.

Nowadays it is the Jubilee Government. I can only imagine what would have happened had they returned home victorious. It would not have been Amina’s victory.

The Jubilee bigwigs would have landed home running helter-skelter – flaunting Amina before their adversaries, like a platinum trophy. The owners of the Jubilee government must, accordingly, accept to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction. It was their defeat. Indeed, it was not even Kenya’s defeat.

At any rate, these have been my thoughts amid humiliating bluster from some West African loud mouths, here in Addis. You listen to these people and want to punch their ears. Eventually, you chastise yourself with the thought, “How are the mighty fallen!” For, we once ruled the world, or in any event Africa.

 This name Kenya was once respected, from Addis Ababa to Abidjan and from Cape Town to Cairo. Now I must sit here and meekly mull over a cup of tea, listening as these loud mouths gleefully run down my country.

The man in the blue dansiki suit has been frothing at the mouth, trying to eat, drink, smoke, laugh and shout – all at once – with the same huge mouth. He has been joyfully telling his friends that Kenya cannot be trusted to lead Africa in the emerging world order.

I don’t know which order. But, our hands are damaged, he said. We cannot do anything right in our own verandah. How do we expect to lead Africa? Indeed, he thinks, East Africans are too soiled to lead. While West Africa is moving ahead, making grand strides in good governance, East Africa has regressed into the past.

From Bujumbura to Nairobi, through Kigali and Kampala, our logo is bullying and intimidation. When we are not intimidating or incarcerating our political competitors, Mr Dansiki was saying, we are cringingly clutching on to power. In Kenya specifically, Mr Big Loud Mouth said, “They are thieves. These guys steal just about anything in sight, and outside.

They can steal babies, examinations, Eurobonds, elections and graveyards. Whom do they think they can lead?” And Mr Dansiki went on, “These East Africans think they are the best when they should actually be embarrassed. Kenyans cannot even handle a simple strike by 4,500 people. Yet they want to lead Africa. They are about to go to an election, where they are going to fight and kill each other again. Who will solve the matter for them if they are at the headship of the African Union?

“These people think everything is about money, money, money! You would expect them to be a little humble after their recent history. Their consciences ought to be overwritten with the graffiti of guilt. Yet who told you that Kenyans have consciences? Their consciences were incinerated in their fires of death, ten years ago. That is why they come here with their trademark impunity, asking us that they now want to lead Africa.”

Friends, I am mortified. So this is what Africa thinks of my country and of me? In a quiet moment, away from Mr Tobacco Stained Dansiki Loud Mouth, I cannot help thinking about his outburst. I cannot understand the unprovoked ventilation of hate. He said nothing about the other countries that sought this seat. Do people hate us that much?

Needless to say, I did not find it necessary to engage him. Maybe I should have put in a word for my country and government? Patriotism would probably require so? Yet, I console myself, patriotism is about agreeing with my country all the time and with my government when it is right. Is this not the same government that tells me at home that it eats up my country as I salivate?