There's a plot to steal the 'drawing board'

By Okech Kendo

Life sometimes gives a people a second chance to make right what they got wrong. Kenyans have been pretty lucky because there is always another chance to return to the drawing board.

In February 2003, two months after the election of the National Rainbow Coalition Government, Kenyans were declared the most ‘optimistic’ people on earth. The Yote Yawezekana parody of the ascendant recycled political class had given the people the impression there would be a new beginning.

The Kanu regime had become the past, as the National Rainbow Coalition became the future — the beginning of a new beginning.

No less a person than President Kibaki was at the helm of the promise, with sidekicks of the Executive telling leaders of the old order to sit back, relax, and watch the science of good governance.

The Kibaki promise remains sonorous, only in the eloquence of its poetry, and betrayal of the great public expectations. At best it remains a great speech of hope that never would be rescued from the realm of the abstract.

The promised unity of purpose fell flat in the face of competing interests. The most vicious were the whims of a power clique of returnees. Those who had tasted power under President Jomo Kenyatta then were driven off the power wagon in subsequent Kanu years.

Now they were back to reclaim the past under the short-lived Narc administration. With a president they called their own in State House the change plank acquired a reactionary hue that undermined the dreams of a Rainbow nation.

"The National Rainbow Coalition represents the future of Kenya politics. Narc is the hope of this country. Our phenomenal success in so short a time is proof that working together in unity, we can move Kenya forward. Look around you, see what a gorgeous constellation of stars we are; just look at this dazzling mosaic of people of various ethnic backgrounds, race, creed, sex, age, experience, and social status."

unity of purpose

"Never in the history of this country have its leaders come together and worked so hard together as one indivisible entity with one vision. We chose to let go our individual differences and personal ambitions to save this nation."

But early this year, about a decade after the age of great expectations and promised unity of purpose, Kenyans were declared victims of widespread sadness.

That was before the Shilling hit its lowest value at Sh90 to the US dollar. It was months before petrol raced to Sh115 per litre, sending prices of consumer goods on a mountain climbing spree.

If sadness was a crisis in March, infectious misery is now a national disaster, waiting to be declared. You can see sadness clamped on people’s faces, as you walk the streets of Nairobi at lunch hour.

The Kiraitu Murungi promise of good governance is the pillar of mismanagement of the energy sector. His ministry remains the single anchor of the rising cost of living.

Perhaps it is time to return to the drawing board. But, sorry, Kenyans will not always find the drawing board every time we mistake a hoax for change, and pretenders for reformers; wolves for sheep.

It would be too optimistic to expect the drawing board shall always be there when change hits a dead-end. A power clique that always promises change but draws inspiration from yore could have stolen the drawing board. If Kenyans truly want a clean Judiciary that delivers to satisfy the national interest, we must be prepared to make change a wholesome package.

A fire-spitting and justice-for-all inspired Judiciary may not deliver when it is suffocating under a mendacious Legislature and a manipulative Executive. And the Legislature should not be the police of integrity of public officers, when its most vocal leaders suffers integrity deficits.

One or two people of impeccable integrity in the Judiciary may find themselves on a dead corner, working with a president and Parliament that pull in different directions. Today more than ever before, there is dire need of a critical mass of change agents in every branch of Government for the new Constitution to yield dividends for the citizenry.

It is right to demand that judges satisfy the integrity expectations of the new Constitution. But the new era shall remain stillborn if aspirants for Parliament and State House are not subjected to the same integrity threshold. There should be no moral remissions for individuals who aspire to public office.

Eternal vigilance

There should be no integrity cut-off points for certain individuals. The Constitution does not allow lowering of the integrity bar. But, you see, politicians who always know how to cover their backs, even as they expose others, influenced the character of the new Constitution. They had commissions to vet integrity of others but none for their kind.

To beat them at their own game of self-perpetuation, we, the people, must be eternally vigilant to safeguard the new era from politicians masquerading as latter-day agents of change.

The ultimate police of change must be you, to reclaim the country from captivity of vested interests.

—Writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor Quality and Production.

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