From Lancaster House 1963 to Democracy in Peril, 2013.

In 1963 a delegation of Kenyan politicians from across the political divide gathered in Lancaster House to negotiate the country's independence constitution. There was a long stand-off between KANU and KADU with the former favouring a centralized system of governance and the latter favouring a decentralized Majimbo system. 

Exhausted at the slow pace of the negotiations and knowing he had 'the numbers' in the forthcoming elections at the end of May 1963, Jomo Kenyatta called out his delegates and told them he was going to agree to the Majimbo constitution to enable them to get on with the election, and as soon as they had won the election and formed government, then they would re-make the constitution in their own image.

And so the delegates returned to Kenya with the Majimbo constitution and an election was held which KANU won handsomely allowing them to form government with Kenyatta as the first Prime Minister.

True to his word, soon after independence, Kenyatta led the process of mutilating the constitution to centralize all power to himself. He began by starving the regional governments of resources, then wooed the opposition to his side leading to its dissolution. He dissolved the Senate and abolished the regional governments. From there it was downhill all the way as Kenya became a one party dictatorship first under Kenyatta and then under Moi.

Fast forward to 2010. Some politicians and power elites were hugely alarmed at the new constitution with its radical transformation agenda. Some of these individuals were honest enough to openly vote 'No' at the referendum. Others took a tactical retreat and, like Kenyatta in 1963, accepted the new constitution without any commitment to it. And like Kenyatta, they were biding their time awaiting the election that would give them the power they needed to start mutilating the constitution.

Now the election has come and gone (though the outcome is not yet settled, at least not till Saturday), but 'the numbers' I see in both chambers of the legislature are a cause for alarm. I get this eerie feeling that we are back in the 1960s. Even the cold war is beginning to replay itself with the East rushing to identify with one side and the West treading more cautiously.

After the dust settles on the election, something tells me our constitution will face an existential threat. The question then will be, shall we stand up to be counted when we are once again threatened by the forces of tyranny, or shall we be content to leave the fate of Kenya in the hands of our ethnic warlords and their gatekeepers?

Celebrating democracy...

The KIRDI polling station is located in an open field. The light from the pressure lamps is not sufficient, so it is supplemented by the headlights of 2 vehicles. Party agents squint as they complete their forms using the soft glow from their mobile phones... Earlier, in the morning, we were graced by the presence of a former African Head of State with all the accompanying pomp, security and protocol.  Now we remain, a small band soldiering on and braving the evening chill under a cloudless sky, with countless stars bearing silent witness to our maturing democracy. I can almost hear the gentle wind whispering softly, 'How blessed you are to be a Kenyan...'

Observing the Kenyan election - 4 March 2013.

Remembering JM Kariuki

Today marks 38 years since Nyandarua North MP, JM Kariuki, was picked up from the Nairobi Hilton Hotel by senior police officers only for his badly mutilated body to be found a few days later in Ngong Forest. In 2008, I wrote this article which was published in The Standard Newspaper. I share it again today as a tribute to a man who was assassinated when I was in Standard 2, but whom I grew to admire for what he lived and died for. 

Kenya’s J.M. Kariuki’s forgotten prophecy of ethnic strife

Posted on 01 April 2008

 

Note: Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (March 21, 1929–March 2, 1975) was a Kenyan socialist politician during the administration of the Jomo Kenyatta government. He held different government positions from 1963, when Kenya became an independent country, to 1975, when he was assassinated. 

By Njonjo Mue

Had he lived a full life, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (popularly known as JM) would have turned 79 last Friday.

But the late Member of Parliament for Nyandarua North was brutally murdered on March 2, 1975, three weeks short of his 46th birthday, robbing Kenya of one of the most dedicated champions of the rights of the poor and a vociferous critic of inequality.

His death, though largely acknowledged as a political assassination by people close to the Kenyatta government, has never been resolved.

With the euphoria surrounding the national power-sharing deal still in the air and talk of a new political order in the offing, it is an opportune time to reflect on what JM stood for, what difference he would have made to our body politic had he lived, and how to safeguard his legacy and ensure that the ideals he lived and died for are not lost to a new generation of actors on the social, political and economic stage.

In the wake of the crisis that has engulfed Kenya since the disputed election last December, which plunged the country into unprecedented chaos, it is common ground that the election results announced by Mr Samuel Kivuitu merely provided the spark that lit the fire that threatened to consume this nation; the fuel had been accumulating over a long time.

Tribalism, past injustices and unequal distribution of resources such as land as well as pervasive poverty and economic inequalities were a time-bomb ticking away and waiting to explode.

And yet we cannot say we did not see it coming, for had we listened to our prophets, such as JM, we would not have come to this sad place. From the onset of independence in 1963, JM constantly warned those that seemed to have acquired a new disease of ‘grabbing’ thousands of acres of land while the majority of Kenyans remained landless.

“This is greed,” he thundered in Parliament in March 1974, one year before he was assassinated.

“It is this greed that will put this country into chaos. Let me state here that this greedy attitude among the leaders is going to ruin this country.”

JM specifically warned privileged elites from Central Province who were taking advantage of their positions to buy up land cheaply from other communities.

“They have even gone as far as Maasailand, saying that they are doing an experiment whereas the whole Masailand has been taken by those greedy people.”

His insight into the creeping inequality in the country acquired a prophetic tone when he warned that if we were not careful, the Kenya would become a country on “ten millionaires and ten million beggars”.

A walk through the slums of Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho and Kawangware today clearly illustrates that this prophesy has sadly come true.

Surrounded by rogues

JM foresaw the danger of ignoring the youth even before formal independence was granted to Kenya.

“If we forget these people (the youth)”, he told Parliament on November 14, 1963, “we will find ourselves surrounded by rogues who are rogues not because they want to become rogues but because they are hungry and this leads them into temptation. The Government should take action immediately before the situation goes from bad to worse.”

He called for a national assistance scheme for the widows and orphans of those who had been killed in the war of Independence and affirmative action for people living with disabilities. He condemned corruption and proposed that no minister or assistant minister should be allowed to sit on any board of a private company because this would lead to a conflict of interests.

On freedom, JM reminded us that political independence was not an end in itself.

“Political independence without economic independence is like having a wedding without a bride,” he told Parliament on March 21, 1974. He condemned dictatorship pointing out that emergent African leadership had perverted democracy to mean “Government by a few for a few on behalf of many, whether the many like it or not.”

Kenya is a country of forgetting and moving on. We ignore injustice after injustice until a crisis such as the one we are struggling to recover from catches up with us.

In these times of national reflection, one cannot help but wonder how far ahead we would be along the journey to true nationhood had we listened to prophets and statesmen like JM instead of killing them; had we taken care of our weak even as we celebrated our strong; had we understood the simple truth that there is enough to go around if it is shared equitably; had we resisted the urge to use our positions to take care of ‘our own’ because we understood that our own included all who call Kenya home.

Mercifully, it is not too late to build the Kenya that JM dreamed and spoke of. If we put our hearts and minds to it, we can be the generation that recovered the promise of a truly independent and democratic country where the individual and the state work together to build a just society.

Only then can we be able to enjoin ourselves to the hopeful vision of JM, proudly proclaimed in 1974, when he said: “In Kenya today, I can only see the dawn of a June morning rising majestically from the white oblivion into the serenity of life.”

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen.

SUPPOSE...

Yesterday

They had us 

At each other's throats

Neighbour killing neighbour

Brother maiming sister

As we rose up 

To defend 'our own'

After the dust had settled

We dried our teary eyes

To find them 

Holding all the power

And we, 

All the broken dreams

Then followed the familiar script -

Maize scandals and oil scandals

Grand regency and grand typos

Salaries raised, taxes unpaid

It was their turn to eat!

Now

Yesterday's enemies are best of friends

And yesterday's friends, worst of enemies

Same cast, different roles

All promising

A better Kenya

Where they can share all the wealth

And we, all the poverty

Suppose just this once

We change the script

And seek out real leaders

Who actually care

About the same things

We care about?

UAMUZI NI WAKO

UAMUZI NI WAKO.

Let's learn from history. In 1776, the US became independent declaring that 'all men are created equal'. But the 'all men', did not include blacks, for slavery continued to be legal until 12th June 1865 when the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolished it after a bloody civil war. 

The founding fathers who expelled the British and passed a liberal constitution could not free slaves because of entrenched interests. Many of those who signed the constitution owned slaves. They left the battle for full freedom to another generation. Indeed they hoped that the new liberal constitution would, over time, be used as an instrument to bring freedom to all people and lead to a more perfect union.

But that was not to be. The brand new law was not strong enough to break long-entrenched shackles and enable the country to move forward. This was because the aristocracy had a vested interest in continuing the institution of slavery. So what could not be achieved through legal means had to be achieved through extra-legal means.

And herein lies the lesson for Kenya. In 1963, we achieved independence, but we soon realized that the colonial state was never dismantled, it was only inherited, and by and large, we remained enslaved with only a few families living it large as they held brief for foreign interests. 

In 2010, after a long struggle, we gave ourselves a new constitution with the hope that it would enable us to finally dismantle the colonial state and give us all an equal share in the fortunes of our land. But over the last two years, we have seen the forces of the status quo back-peddle on the promises of the new constitution. For example, one of its key promises is land reform, and yet we have seen the President who swore to defend the constitution blatantly ignore it and a court order to boot in failing to gazette the validly appointed land commissioners, despite the fact that land has been at the centre of all our conflicts. 

Makau Mutua was recently vilified for predicting that there would be a military coup if a particular side won the forthcoming elections. I wouldn't put it exactly like that because that risks placing me on one or other side of the Jubilee-Cord divide while I don't believe that either of them is committed to fundamental change. My point rather is that if the outcome of the March 4th election is such that the fundamental changes envisaged by the constitution are rolled back, no matter by whom, then I fear that this country will have missed one of its last chances to achieve peaceful transformation. For those who make it impossible to achieve change through peaceful means make it inevitable for the oppressed to pursue it through violent means. 

The future of this country is in our hands. The character of this nation and the fortunes of generations to come shall be fundamentally defined by how we vote on March 4th. Shall we take charge of our collective destiny, or are we content to become the laughing stock of neighbours near and far; the subject of whispers about a people who once seemed to be going somewhere but who got shipwrecked in the high seas of tribalism, greed, economic collapse, socio-political confusion and moral decay? 

Uamuzi ni wako.

Be My Valentine

BE MY VALENTINE
By Njonjo Mue

You drew your bow of love
And shot your arrows of passion
Straight through my heart
And there was no escape
As I yielded to your beauty
Surrendered to your charm.

I gazed into your eyes
But there was nothing there
To betray what you really felt
I searched your face
For just a hint
Of emotion
But all I saw
Was that haunting smile
That declared that I belonged to you
Even though you could never
Really be mine.

But there was no escape!
I lay helplessly in your arms
Abandoned in my love for you
And wanting so desperately
To believe in yours for me
For there was no turning back.

Many moons later
I still search
But I am no nearer
To capturing your heart
Though your mind and body
Are always there
For me to behold.

I ask you one more time today
Knowing what your answer will be
But still offering you a love
Beyond hope, beyond reason
A love you already know
To be yours forever...
"Won't you be my Valentine?"