Independence Day

The people deserve the leaders they get, so the saying goes. Then the leaders get the respect they deserve from the people, who deserve them, or so it seems these days.

Kenya's Independence Day celebrations of 12th December 2008, the 45th since 1963, were the most chaotic ever. We prefer to call it Jamhuri Day – Republic Day – for on December 12th 1964, exactly a year after independence, Kenya became a republic – finally putting an end to the Queen of England’s constitutional role as Kenya’s residual Head of State. That same Elizabeth II who, once upon a time in Kenya, went up a tree a princess and came down a queen the very following morning! We still love her!

A DIGRESSION: Don’t get me wrong: chaos, Santayana teaches, is any order that causes confusion in our minds. The confusion is not in the order, not in the extant state of affairs, but in our minds, says he. It’s the mind that the order, ordered as the order might be, confuses. Yet Santayana does not say whose mind’s eye sees the order when our minds are, as he sees it, confused. DIGRESSION ENDS.

For the first time ever, unthinkable (funny?) but it’s true, the President could not finish his address to the nation – historically the centerpiece of the day’s events. The speech is in fact supposed to cascade throughout the country. Not only is it aired live by the electronic media, but the text is also read out, though not simultaneously, in all of Kenya’s Provinces by the Provincial Commissioners (PCs), in all the Districts by the DC’s, and in all the Divisions by the District Officers (DOs). In the Districts and Divisions, the occasion offers an opportunity to local dignitaries to address the gatherings before the President’s speech is read and the proceedings closed.

Incidentally, on this same occasion last year, near Holo, the Kisumu West DC would not let me talk, though he was aware of my presence and allowed others conected to the incumbent MP, who was himself not there. I belonged to the wrong party, I suppose; but I also thought he was trying to stay on the right side of an incumbent several aspirants were trying to dislodge. I was of course disgusted, and I could see that other people were too. I felt the kind of discust which I imagine all gagging engenders, and which the President must have felt this December 12th.

But some eight Kilometers away at Kombewa, last year, I had caught up with the on-going events at the Divisional level, and the DO, a lady, had let me speak without a fuss and even with the respect befitting a parliamentary aspirant. I was pleased and, let me confess, offered crates of soda to the 150 or so raia in attendance. Others drank too. It was a hot day, but talk about cocacolonization! I also knew that the President entertains plenty at State House on this day, after the public gathering, but he does not use his own money!

Back to this year: It is not Yambo who cannot speak at the District gathering, I was happily at my computer “on” Gandhi Wing this time, but the President who cannot complete his speech, and so continue a tradition, at the national event! It is not Yambo whom some District “arm of government” with no civic virtue stops, but the President (and I suspect the Prime Minister) whom the people give the respect they think he deserves (both deserve) these days – just about two weeks from the first anniversary of his ECK-declared ”victory”, and the latter's "defeat”!

Exactly what happened this December 12th, and why, is all over Saturday's newspapers. Let me summarize as follows: There were demonstrations and heckling in Nairobi and certain other parts of Kenya at venues where the day’s celebrations were held. The crowd was simply not its usual cheering self – something which had been noticed with less buzz at Raila’s home-coming party in the Kibera slums about two weeks ago. It had reason, reasons, to be glum. And serious security lapse was witnessed, at the VIP section of Nyayo Stadium, the venue. An un-vetted man with an agenda, a Mr. Frederick Odhiambo – a known member of Bunge la Wananchi (Parliament of the People, or The People’s Parliament) – deliberately found his way to a seat just ten meters away from the President. He did not sit quietly throughout, nor did make noise till close to the end (which is when his presence was noticed by the President’s security detail, and his unscripted noise caused a helter-skelter of action) – which is when the Nyayo Stadium show came to a sudden stop!

Let’s put it this other way: The public’s foul mood was already much in evidence when that happened. And so was the President’s. Both President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga had already been openly heckled. The manhandling earlier in the day, in full view of the crowd, of a protesting Mong’are (aka Nyambane), one of Kenya’s most famous comedians, had not helped matters. It was all so contagious, as Christakis might have noted were he there. Still, the belated discovery of Odhiambo’s presence was the proximate catalyst for that abrupt end.

Three wedge issues were the reason for all this unbecoming turn of events on a great ceremonial day. First, the continuing shortage and escalating price of unga (maize flour) and other consumables across the country. This is partly the consequence of widespread post-election violence which the country suffered early this year, and partly the result of mafia-like scheming in certain high places broadly in the docket of the Minister for Agriculture. Talk on the street is that YK92 is regrouping at the Ministry. Lack of access to unga of course means njaa (hunger), which sections of the crowd periodically reminded the leaders of.

Second, the disquieting continuation of tax-free emoluments to Parliamentarians and other holders of constitutional offices. Third, the passage by Parliament of the much-resented Media Bill -- the Kenya Communications (Amendment ) Bill, 2008, known in certain quarters as the ICT Bill – whose effect will be, inter alia, to vigorously gag the media, and which now awaits only the President’s assent before it becomes law.

It is of course hypocritical for certain circles in ODM to declare belatedly that they will take government to court, a government in which they are coalition partners, if the President signs the Media Bill into law. Where were they when Parliament, in which they control nearly 50% of the votes, was voting in the bill? Yet that is not the only reason for the public’s gripe, and it is hypocritical to make pronouncements and act as though it is. Why have they not mobilized their voting block to get Parliamentarians to pay taxes like other law-abiding citizens? In fact, to demonstrate seriousness of purpose and unequivocal empathy with the people, ODM MPs should voluntarily ask for their pay to be taxed as they wait for Parliament to act. Anything less than that is just so much hot air.