Let Wako stand up if he is a reformer

Attorney General Amos Shitswila Wako should sue the Obama Administration for defamation if he thinks he is on the right side of history.

The US is accusing a top and influential Government official of undermining justice. They say the offending official was influential during the outbreak of multi-billion-shilling scandals, such as Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing. This official had, and still has, the power to act, but not a single person has been prosecuted, conclusively, for these economic crimes.

The unnamed officer is claimed to be frustrating justice, through inconclusive and nolle prosecquid prosecutions and, therefore, abetting impunity.

These are serious allegations that question the competence, integrity and commitment to justice and the public interest. By not prosecuting the suspects, the influential officer has been subverting justice.

Although Wako has not been fingered by name and office, right thinking citizens can conclude it is the AG Johnnie Carson had in mind on Monday, when he delivered the visa ban. The unnamed senior officer travels a lot and is probably too busy to think about reforms.

Now that this man won’t travel to the United States and could possibly be kept out of the European Union and Britain, the influential officer would have time to concentrate on pending domestic issues.

But the US is not the first to point in the general direction of Wako. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions Philip Alston had earlier asked that the AG, former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali and Chief Justice Evan Gicheru be sacked to give impetus to reforms.

Ali is now Postmaster General, so he cannot be the target of the US visa ban. He also did not have much to do with prosecutions of Anglo Leasing or Goldenberg suspects. Ali’s case, as Prof Alston claimed, was that he was abetting extra-judicial killings.

Vandalism of democracy

Again, the 15 years of frustrating justice cannot refer to the Chief Justice because Gicheru has been president of the Bench for seven years. He was not the Chief Justice when the Goldenberg scam exploded in 1991. But he was around during the culmination of Anglo Leasing in 2004. Although he travels occasionally, he does not fly a lot.

Even though Gicheru has been cited as a hurdle to judicial reforms, the US has not arrived at his case yet. Gicheru swore-in President Kibaki on a Sunday at sundown even as Kenya bled.

Later, the aggrieved refused to petition the courts through the Bench Gicheru leads because he had legitimised vandalism of democracy.

By that act of responding to the whims of the Executive, the CJ eroded, further, public confidence in the Judiciary.

The peeling isolates the Attorney General whose office has been cited adversely in other reports calling for institutional reforms.

If Wako sues for defamation, if he thinks it is him the Americans have fingered, he would have identified with right-thinking members of society.

Right thinkers, which is the lot it takes for a defamation suit to stand, seem to think it is Wako who fits the description of the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa.

True, Wako was not cited by name or rank, but the numerous clues point to him and, he has presided over the State Law Office for about two decades.

Wako should count on security of tenure, as his shield against being rejected the way the public did former Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission director Aaron Ringera.

Unlike Ringera, Wako holds the office at the pleasure of the President and could survive for as long as he remains strategic. Once appointed, the AG does not need parliamentary or board approval every five years for renewal of contract.

The end of Ringera’s first five-year tenure at Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission gave the public the exit clause to negotiate whether the ‘dragon slayer’ would stay longer than his welcome.

Wako is constitutionally cushioned against public or parliamentary lynching. But Parliament, by its own Motion can censure or even pass a vote of no confidence in the Government chief legal advisor.

Parliament is yet to claw Wako. Not even for approving treaties that yielded Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scams.

Perhaps the genial Wako knows his way out of the intrigues of power. This could explain why he has survived four parliaments and two regimes.

ever-lasting advisor

The many things that have happened or not happened during Wako’s tenure must have persuaded the US and the United Nations, through Alston, that Kenya needs international intervention to be rescued from the stranglehold of this survivor.

Wako arrived at the State Law Office in 1991, which means he was been the State’s legal gate keeper for 18 years; three years above the 15 "some influential Government officer" has been stifling justice.

The three years could have been a grace period for the AG, who once consulted for the UN in East Timor to show his reform credentials.

By innuendo, the ever-lasting Government chief legal advisor could be the first government officer to land a US visa ban.

The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Quality and Production.

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