Somebody
put a clock on it already. March 5, 2013, is fast approaching.
Alliances are yet to be firmed up. Mergers and coalitions remain in the
realm of fevered imagination among the chattering classes and the
punditocracy. The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
has studiously ignored the political to-ing and fro-ing of Kenya's
political classes and chosen instead to attempt to bully Chief Justice
Mutunga and Attorney-General Muigai into providing "more" evidence with
which to hang Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Francis Muthaura and Joshua
Sang, Kenya's pathetic attempt at duking it out with the likes of the
former Yugoslavia (Slobodan Milosevic), Liberia (Charles Taylor) or
Rwanda (Thomas Lubanga). Kenyans are not interested in party manifestos
(though we will avidly devour their contents when they are published, if
at all) or political ideologies. We don't give a damn about the
"issues" that seem to animate our five battalions of civil society
activists. We care about "the implementation of the Constitution" but
only because the irrepressible Fourth Estate tells us that we must. The
truth is we only care about the election date and whether "our man" will
be elected (Martha and Charity will get honourable mentions; no one
seriously thinks that they can win).
So it is trepidation that the saga of the BVR kits keeps unfolding in worrying detail. Few seem to remember that it was rumours of rent-seeking among the Commissioners of the IEBC and its secretariat that scuttled the initial attempt at purchasing the BVR kits. Few seem to care that the so-called "government-to-government" deal between Kenya and Canada ended up being way more expensive than the IEBC was allowed to budget for (Njeru Githae's explanations regarding the total number of machines and revised specifications of the kits will persuade no one). We are now set to spend more for an untested system for which we do not have trained personnel and which we expect to be used in a truncated period without a credible system in place to verify and correct any anomalies. All this is set to occur at a time when the scars of past violence are yet to heal, several hundred thousand Kenyans have not been restored to their properties, and the nation seems to be primed for more violence with the drip-drip-drip of violent events in the Coast and, rather disturbingly, Kisumu.
Ours is a single-minded focus on the general election. We have allowed nothing to distract us from the event-to-end-all-events. Not even the unmitigated disaster it may yet turn out to be. A careful analysis of the proposals of county government candidates should sober us up quick. Everyone is convinced that implementing devolution will be a cake-walk. After all, devolution is the next logical step from local authorities, right? A Governor will perform more or less the same functions as a Mayor or Chairman of a Council. That is the presumption. In is wrong. Any governor elected without a financial or administrative plan will doom his county to misery. And because the president will be busy discovering the perils of governing in a divided government, he will have no time to hold governors' hands as they navigate the treacherous waters of grass-roots development. Nairobi's corruption, devolved to the counties, will make everything much harder than they need be and only the ruthless, crafty, canny, wily and ambitious will survive. None seems to grasp this basic fact.
High on the go-go juice of constitutional implementation, Kenyans have refused to consider the pernicious effects of the candidacies of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Of course the two have every right to claim innocence. They have a right to stand for election too. They should not do it, not while their indictment is hanging fire at The Hague. It is contemptuous of the peoples of Kenya and their Constitution. It tells Kenyans that regardless of the odium one is held in certain quarters, all one needs is a hard-eyed, money-fueled determination and all will be OK. The recent flashes of school-dormitory fires are a grass-roots reaction to this contempt for the rules that are displayed by the likes of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto. So, somebody better put a countdown clock on it. When it ticks over to zero, we will either set this place on fire (again) or we will have reason to celebrate (having finally turned the page on KANU).
So it is trepidation that the saga of the BVR kits keeps unfolding in worrying detail. Few seem to remember that it was rumours of rent-seeking among the Commissioners of the IEBC and its secretariat that scuttled the initial attempt at purchasing the BVR kits. Few seem to care that the so-called "government-to-government" deal between Kenya and Canada ended up being way more expensive than the IEBC was allowed to budget for (Njeru Githae's explanations regarding the total number of machines and revised specifications of the kits will persuade no one). We are now set to spend more for an untested system for which we do not have trained personnel and which we expect to be used in a truncated period without a credible system in place to verify and correct any anomalies. All this is set to occur at a time when the scars of past violence are yet to heal, several hundred thousand Kenyans have not been restored to their properties, and the nation seems to be primed for more violence with the drip-drip-drip of violent events in the Coast and, rather disturbingly, Kisumu.
Ours is a single-minded focus on the general election. We have allowed nothing to distract us from the event-to-end-all-events. Not even the unmitigated disaster it may yet turn out to be. A careful analysis of the proposals of county government candidates should sober us up quick. Everyone is convinced that implementing devolution will be a cake-walk. After all, devolution is the next logical step from local authorities, right? A Governor will perform more or less the same functions as a Mayor or Chairman of a Council. That is the presumption. In is wrong. Any governor elected without a financial or administrative plan will doom his county to misery. And because the president will be busy discovering the perils of governing in a divided government, he will have no time to hold governors' hands as they navigate the treacherous waters of grass-roots development. Nairobi's corruption, devolved to the counties, will make everything much harder than they need be and only the ruthless, crafty, canny, wily and ambitious will survive. None seems to grasp this basic fact.
High on the go-go juice of constitutional implementation, Kenyans have refused to consider the pernicious effects of the candidacies of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Of course the two have every right to claim innocence. They have a right to stand for election too. They should not do it, not while their indictment is hanging fire at The Hague. It is contemptuous of the peoples of Kenya and their Constitution. It tells Kenyans that regardless of the odium one is held in certain quarters, all one needs is a hard-eyed, money-fueled determination and all will be OK. The recent flashes of school-dormitory fires are a grass-roots reaction to this contempt for the rules that are displayed by the likes of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto. So, somebody better put a countdown clock on it. When it ticks over to zero, we will either set this place on fire (again) or we will have reason to celebrate (having finally turned the page on KANU).
No comments:
Post a Comment