Cutting Deals at the expense of National Interest
By John Harrington Ndeta, Ajabu Africa News , September 19.

“If Ringera issue is so important that we can trade important National issues like Mau for it, then Mr. Speaker I must say I’m ashamed to be a member of this Bunge”

These were the words as quoted verbatim from Environment Minister John Michuki while contributing to a motion on Government Task Force reported amended and adopted by the Kenyan Parliament last week on Tuesday afternoon.

Prior to the parliamentary debate on the Mau report and the controversial reappointment of Aaron Ringera as KACC boss, legislators from Mount Kenya and their counterparts from Rift valley are reported to have separately met to hammer out a common stand on the two critical issues that we expected to be finalized in parliament this week.

In what is perceived as a re-emergence of the infamous Kikuyu-Kalenjin(KK) alliance, leaders from Central province and the larger Mount Kenya region were summoned by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Uhuru Kenyatta to first and foremost defend the reappointment of Retired Justice Aaron Ringera. Considering the fact that House Speaker Kenneth Marende had ruled that Parliaments’ discussion on the matter does not amount to subjudice, it was highly likely that the parliament would censure Ringera’s reappointment throwing the executive into a spin. This was based on the furore witnessed last week in parliament after the President unilaterally reappointed Ringera and his two assistants at the helm of Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC).

Thus, to achieve the objective of defending ‘one of their own’ it become necessary that alliances be struck to get the much needed MPs support on the Ringera reappointment.

Thus the thorny issues of Mau, pitying Rift Valley leaders become the gamble for the Ringera issue. You scratch my back, I scratch yours analogy become inevitable considering that the two camps seemed besieged by the two national issues.

In a flip side of the same issue the Rift Valley MPs desperate to have ‘their people’ compensated and or not evicted from the Mau saw a lifeline in the Ringera reappointment saga.

They new much better that their brothers from the Slopes needed their support on Ringera and asked for a good gesture before the Ringera issue was tabled in parliament.

The legislators demanded that the Mau Task force report be amended to do a way with ‘offensive’ clauses and introduce others which would make the conservation exercise more ‘humane.’

Thus, when the Motion on adoption of Mau report was moved in Parliament, the Rift valley MPs were quite a ware that the Mount Kenya MPs would rally behind them in the proposed amendments.

True to this, when the speaker asked the question: as many as are of the same opinion say I, the I’s carried the day with none saying nay.

But amongst Central legistlators whose conscience could not allow them to say I nor could it be courageous enough to thunder a nay were Honourable Michuki and Kimunya.

The duo makes a remarkable contribution fro the conservation of the Mau and it become evident that few Kenyans’ understand the gravity of environmental conservation.

When the Prime Minister Raila Odinga took to the stage, he rose above board to make a candid defense for the report he commissioned. But is sad that the amendments had been adopted and so is the governments hand tied when it comes to implementing to Mau task force report to the spirit and the letter.

What a precedence the 10th parliament is setting?!

If leaders from particular regions will throw to the dogs all reason and be confined to their ethnic cocoons only thinking of ‘their people’ good, then we had better go majimbo.

If the Rift Valley MPs, some who illegally acquired land in the Mau and sold it to unsuspecting Kenyan’s from their backyards were genuine enough, they should have first of all accounted for their actions instead of pretending to defend the rights of Kenyans they have used as pawns in their political games all along. It is not in dispute that only 1960 Kenyans have legal title deeds in Mau forest. But some of our Rift valley MP’s insist that over 40 thousand Kenyans are currently living in Mau. It is how they got there that remains a mystery and our beloved MPs can not dare explain that because they know better.

Likewise, it would be better for the Mount Kenya MPs to be arguing that Ringera has managed to tame corruption in Kenya and deserves a second term than that he is one of their own. If the yardstick to the appointments in Kenyan remains he region from which a person comes from, his/her tribe and political angling of the person in question, then we will keep leading other third world countries from behind.

In today’s’ world, the country has got to be run by internationally acceptable standards practices which include appointments based on qualification, integrity and performance. Above all due process must be followed in appointments. One wonders why the executive ends up making appointments where Governmental and Parastatal boards and ministries should be involved in searching for the right persons to hire.

Corruption remains a monster for Kenya several years after Ringera was installed as the Anti-Corruption czar and the best thing he could do is pave way for someone else to try doing what he failed to do for in the last 6 years. Tribe or no tribe, what Kenyans want today is a person who will truly deliver and not serve interests of people who put him/her in office.

Kenya is a country with varied composition of people and what unites us should be of national interests rather than selfish and materialistic ones.

It is time that we let concepts of justice; equity and fairness prevail at the national platform.

Not by-partisan and myopic interests which have driven Kenya to the brink of abyss over the years.

We thought that the current make up of parliament is much aware of the effects of tribalism and nepotism as it was inaugurated under a turmoil occasioned by the same.

And so when two major tribes, seem to cut deals at the expense of other forty tribes, it smacks of what we witnessed in early 2008. That a few tribes with numbers can unite to force their wishes down the throat of the majority is despicable.

Never again should such blatant, bloody, tribalistic alliances be allowed to flourish at the expense to true democracy and justice for all.
harryndeta@yahoo.com