Bomas: Theatre of Kenya’s push for law reforms

BBI Report launch at Bomas of Kenya. (Photo/Stafford Ondego)

If constitutional reform in Kenya was a religion, then the Bomas of Kenya, the site where the Building Bridges Initiative report was launched to the public yesterday, would be hallowed ground. Bomas, like Mt Sinai, where the 10 Commandments were given to Moses, Bomas is turning out into a symbolic venue of constitutional change in Kenya. In March 15, 2004, after nearly a year at the Bomas of Kenya auditorium deliberating on a constitution, delegates, led by then Cabinet Minister Kiraitu Murungi, walked out of the venue with a draft constitution.

“We will not go back there...” Kiraitu said, while pointing at the main auditorium with a band of loyalists who felt Bomas had been transformed into a forum for Raila Odinga to extract his Prime Minister promise of 2002. The constitution-making process had begun way earlier with clamour from the civil society, which led to the assent of the Constitution of Kenya Review Act in 1997, which Parliament assented to and paved way for the law change.