From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2012
I am not amused when members of Parliament worked late into the night rewriting electoral laws to subvert efforts to promote discipline in political parties and ensure only serious presidential contenders make it to the ballot.
I am not because these are the same politicians who have been recycled from Jomo Kenyatta to Daniel arap Moi regimes. They want to continue from where these bad and corrupt leaders stopped so as to continue using human beings for their selfish and corrupt ends.
That is why without respect to party affiliations they suppressed the will of Kenyans as expressed in the 2010 referendum on the Constitution. They not only went against the spirit of laws Kenyans overwhelmingly voted for, but also invaded the electoral laws they themselves passed to anchor the dream of Kenyans.
It explains further why there was little change in President Kenyatta’s Cabinet after the General Election of October 1974. He kept Moi, Mbiyu Koinange, Julius Kiano, Mwai Kibaki, Jeremiah Nyagah, James Gichuru, Jackson Angaine, Isaac Omolo-Okero and Charles Njonjo in their jobs.
He brought in Munyua Waiyaki, who had resigned in 1966 in sympathy with former Vice-President Oginga Odinga, to replace Njoroge Mungai as foreign minister. Daniel Mutinda replaced Eliud Mwendwa as the minister for Ukambani. Stanley Oloitipitip, Mathew Ogutu (replacing William Omamo) and Eliud Mwamunga were the other new arrivals.
Even though Kenyatta also appointed Kenya’s first female assistant minister, Dr Julia Ojiambo, predictably to Housing and Social Services, Geoffrey Kariithi remained permanent secretary in the Office of the President and secretary to the Cabinet he had to bring more than half the permanent secretaries from his Kikuyu community to defend and cover up his corrupt and bad leadership.
Kenyatta had to pick 12 nominations to Parliament from different ethnic or tribal communities whom he could use as his shield to protect him from those communities he deemed were against his bad leadership.
They were two representatives of Kenya’s tribal unions and illiterates- Njenga Karume, chairman of Gema, and Mulu Mutisya, leader of the New Akamba Union (NAU) among others.
Those who could not condone his corrupt leadership he dropped. They included assistant ministers JM Kariuki, Charles Rubia, Burudi Nabwera and Martin Shikuku. The pro-Odinga Luo also received little consideration, except Omolo-Okero who retained his ministerial position, despite the fact that he was defeated in Bondo, was nominated to Parliament in 1975.
When Kenyatta realized that dissident Marie Jean Seroney was the only sole candidate for the post of deputy speaker, Kenyatta summoned a secret session to try to delay the election; and when he failed he immediately prorogued Parliament.
While there were rumours that Kenyatta had threatened Seroney with detention after he had refused illegal allocation of firm, Kenyatta did not want JM Kariuki because he remained the unofficial opposition’s leader, spearheading the fight against capitalism, corruption, the land deals with the United Kingdom, and the increasing wealth of the business, political and administrative elites.
It is one of the reasons why the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) continues to recruit young people to reclaim their land back grabbed by Kenyatta. When President Toroitich Daniel arap Moi succeeded Kenyatta as the second president of Kenya on August 22, 1978, he continued with the mess.
He was later to be fought by some Kikuyu elites through GEMA alliance when they realized that he incorporated his Kalenjin ethnic communities leaving many Kikuyu elites in the cold. They were trying to deny him by suggesting constitutional change that would have barred him as vice president from automatically taking over from Kenyatta.
The only way to bar Moi from taking over from Kenyatta was to call for the constitutional change. Mr. Kihika Kimani was used to make the call for constitutional change, just in a similar way they are using Danson Mungata.
Although during Moi this could not easily work because he had laid down strategies that would make him be more popular than ever been before by introducing Nyayo milk in all primary schools in the country, initiating Nyayo wards and Nyayo tea zones.
In June 1984, Moi ordered that all civil servants become Kanu members. This move was not only to strengthen the party but also to make sure that constitution was not changed to bar him from becoming the president.
In July 1985 Moi formed a disciplinary committee to deal with Kanu members who did not want go his way. Moi had to ammend the constitution in 1986 to enable him to transfer control of the civil service to the president’s office, removing the security tenure from the Attorney General and the Auditor General, and abolishing the post of chief secretary.
Moi had also to drop arap Too as nominated Member of Parliament in preference to Uhuru Kenyatta, son of founding President Kenyatta to send a signal to Kikuyu communities that he was not against them.
Moi also used former “powerful” Kikuyu Attorney General, Charles Njonjo in 1982 to enact in parliament the notorious section 2A of the constitution, which purported to decide Kanu the only political party in Kenya.
This would give Kanu power to elect civic and parliamentarians of their choice. It could also give them power to dismiss any party member who is not loyal to the president and the party in general. Keneth Matiba was expelled from Kanu under such changes.
Such constitutional changes also enabled Moi to stick to power by firing Mwai kibaki as his Vice President. Moi claimed that Kibaki exported maize while people were going hungry because of mismanagement of food grains they had grown through sweat and labor was why he was firing him.
Such constitutional changes gave Moi power to sit on the outcome of inquiries, notably the one under Justice Akilano Akiwumi commission to find those who initiated the ethnic clashes.
Long before Akiwumi Commission was set up, a parliamentary select committee had investigated the 1991-1993 land clashes in the Rift Valley. The committee, headed by Changamwe MP Kennedy Kiliku, linked several Kanu MPs and government ministers to the violence that preceded the 1992 General Election. Kanu and a few opposition MPs ganged up against the Kiliku report and threw it out of parliament.
In the current proposed constitutional change, the MPs want Elections Act which restricts candidates for president and deputy president from seeking any other position, a provision that could have condemned losers to political oblivion.
Garsen MP Danson Mungatana defended the provision in the Elections Act that gives an opportunity to losers in the Presidential or Deputy Presidential elections to be nominated as MPs.
Mungatana said the provision would ensure the opposition is strengthened in Parliament to provide effective checks and balances on the Executive even as questions are raised over the manner the Act was corrected by the Attorney General.
Mungata comes from the Coast where it is believed that MRC’s command is using sacred forests or kayas to recruit, train and indoctrinate new members on its ideology, constitution, production of fake identification papers, and drawing up of plans to get new members, including children.
He is coming from the region where the Government has warned that a section of the media are fanning tribal hatred and propping the Pwani si Kenya agenda. Although the Media Council of Kenya, National Cohesion and Integration Commission point out that the media are behaving irresponsibly over the Mombasa Republican Council, the idea is to cover up why the MRC are fighting for their rights.
There are five FM stations in Coast Province broadcasting in local languages and Swahili aiming at seeing that all the current political leaders must go home to pave way for those who would serve Kenyan’s people interest.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Peaceful world is the greatest heritage That this generation can give to the generations To come- All of us have a role.