The Unfortunate Story of Kenya

Kenya’s problems go back a long time. It is fitting to listen to the words of a Kenyan professional who’s been around longer than I have. His experience of the transition from the colonial era to independent Kenya under three presidents is instructive. The overall sense is that our nation is slipping backwards:

“To those as old as myself, the match by Kenya to self destruction has been watched with increasing fear. We saw the consequences of Pio Gama Pinto’s death. We lived the violent aftermath of Tom Mboya’s assassination. We lived two weeks of darkness and uncertainty following JM Kariuki’s murder. Worse still, was Robert Ouko’s assassination, an ominous warning to the chauvinistic, power-hungry self-seekers whose misguided machinations have plunged Kenya into uncertainty.

“I feel ashamed at the naïveté and parochial perception of many of the current Kenyan leaders  who have held us at ransom. Before the last general elections, if you could dare call them that, I confided in my friends that I would not vote for two personal reasons. First of all I knew that former President Moi had rigged Kenyan elections for over 24 years of his rule due to his cunning double-faced leadership. I also knew that whatever the outcome of the elections, the dye had already been cast and self-anointed victors were already wetting their mouths for the spoils. I was not going to grace the occasion by voting for evil, myopic thieves and chauvinistic liars.

“Many Kenyans, for lack of words to say, or for their own cowardice, routinely ask Kibaki and Raila to solve their differences. But is it as simple as that? Nay. The stupidity, crudeness, arrogance and lack of diplomacy manifested by the new generation of dishonourable charlatans and court-jesters in the form of mediators leaves us in a hopeless situation. One is amazed at the failure of our so-called mediators to understand the glaring writings on the wall. A President of the most powerful superpower in the world makes a transatlantic flight to our borders and sends his de facto second-in-command to our hapless country. The message is clear: “We are friends of Kenyans”, she says. “Kenyans have been demanding peace from you for a long time. You should have solved your differences by yesterday”, she continues. “We shall do everything possible to help Kenyans. We shall not allow the situation in Kenya to degenerate to unbearable proportions. We shall find out and deal with those who are disrupting the talks or formenting violence. Kenya is not an island and what affects Kenya affects us too, and indeed the whole world. It is our social responsibility as a superpower to ensure that democratic principles are maintained in the whole world.”

“As they say, let those who have ears hear, and eyes, see. It would appear that the likes of Wetangula neither heard nor saw. Instead the PNU-axis started to dance to the tune of “sovereignty and constitution”. These people know that Iraq also had a constitution and sovereignty, and so did Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Somalia and East Timor. These countries are now under something akin to colonial rule and this is the destination our country is espousing. Sovereignty in the world today finds its expression in economic and technological might, not in some artificial, miserable, poverty-stricken geographical entities based on arbitrary demarcations created by former colonial masters.

“What the Graceful diplomatic lady has been telling our negotiators is, “That person who went to plant his vote at the polling station is the real Kenyan, not the likes of you who strategically positioned yourselves to steal it from the granary after the harvest. We shall do anything in our power to assist the ordinary Kenyan, not because we have some romantic encounter with them, but because, in that way, we shall have control of the country whose strategic global position is too dear to lose. We shall recolonise you if we have to, should you not wake up and put your house in order”. Funnily enough, our negotiators do not seem to appreciate that the European Union, President Bush, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Security Council and, funnily enough, the African Union are reading from the same script. And that, by inference, Kofi Anan, willingly or unwillingly, is their mouthpiece. They seem to equate their current predicament and chances to those of Mugabe and Zimbabwe. Unfortunately for our gluttonous Kenyan leaders, Zimbabwe is of no strategic interest to world powers. Soon they will be trampled and relegated to the archives of the murky African history.”