Uhuru Kenyatta is not the Pope.

Uhuru Kenyatta, this blogger believes, is being unfairly accused of being a dictator-in-the-making. This blogger is not saying that the attempts to "muzzle the media" or to hamstring the civil society industry are not harebrained or potty, but this blogger strains to find the fingerprints of the Head of State in the machinations against the media or the civil society industry. If memory serves, the President, before he ascended to the throne that is the Kenyan presidency, believed in the freedom of the media, his family being an investor in the industry. His disputations with members of the press were taken to an industry body. Even when he had grave reservations about their behaviour, at no point did Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta demand a leash or a muzzle to corral the members of the Fourth Estate.

His parliamentary party, on the other hand, marshalled by the inept Aden Duale and Justin Muturi has proven to be the bugbear of the Fourth Estate, taking incremental steps to lock out media houses, and their reporters, from revealing the truth about Parliament. When the Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Bill was wending its way through the bowels of the Government of Kenya, the most vocal proponents of change were media owners whose interest in the changes was more in how much more they could gouge out of their consumers with the minimum of official fuss from the Executive or the Judiciary. They did not anticipate that what their media houses did, and how their reporters reported the news, would come back to bite them in the ass.

This is not an intelligent rationale for the National Assembly carrying torches and pitchforks against the Fourth Estate, but no one accused the Eleventh Parliament of being the most intelligent. What Parliament did, whether the media want to admit or not, has the implicit, if not explicit, imprimatur of the people. If Parliament is the expression of the people's will, then what Parliament does is what the people want it to do. And who would Uhuru Kenyatta be to reject what the people, through their elected representatives, demand.

Of course that is a simplistic assessment of the facts on the ground. Parliament rarely does what the people want it to do. The Executive rarely does what is not in its best interests, usually just plain survival. The media are not the blameless souls they have portrayed themselves to be. In this murky world we now have a dodgy Judiciary with its own integrity issues which the Chief Justice has valiantly attempted to address. So far he seems to be shooting blanks.

But Uhuru Kenyatta is not a dictator-in-the-making. Ten months into his reign, he has discovered a few uncomfortable facts. The public service is the most change-averse institution in all of creation. The media who loved the drama of the campaign treats him with barely-concealed contempt and will do everything in its power to reveal his dirty laundry for all to see. Parliament has proven to be the headache he thought he could avoid with a little discipline instilled in the ranks. Aden Duale and Justin Muturi have demonstrated that winning is not the same as leading.

If Mr Kenyatta were intent to rule rather than lead, the first thing he would have done would have been to destroy the most vocal and apparently loyal member of his court as a warning to both his friends and enemies that there is only one centre of power. Then he would have crammed his cronies, regardless of the results, in key institutions controlling finance, security, foreign policy and public works. Then he would simply have arrested all those who challenged his authority, whether they were accused of an offence or not.

When the President faithfully executes the duties of his office, just as he promised to do, he is accused of dictatorial tendencies. The Constitution tells him what he can and cannot do. He has obeyed the Constitution at every step of his presidency. He has made mistakes; he is not the infallible Pope of Rome after all. But he has admitted his errors and moved on. If the people want him gone, and not the media, they will elect someone else in four years' time. That is the bargain we made with ourselves three years ago. it is vile for the media to attempt to state that it is not what we know it to be.