November 9, 2024

Apologize, but We can See Your Faults

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Adika is chair of Coast Civil Society Network for Human Rights (Photo / Courtesy)

By Zedekiah Adika

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

Dear Mohamed Ali, MP.

It is unlike me to pen an open piece to leaders. However, I am unable to contain my frustrations against the trend you are taking.

The last one month has been a heavy moment for our Nation, Kenya. Young citizens and persons of goodwill have taken to the streets, in a bid to vent their frustrations with the ruling political class.

What began as discontent against Finance Bill, 2024, culminated in a wave of demonstration spread across the nation calling on political leadership to behave. The positive spirit has however, been clouded with deaths, acts of violence and abductions of innocent Kenyans. 

For the first time in our history, demonstrators gained entry to Parliament in expressing their anger emanating from your collective failure to listen. While some of you have since offered their apologies, part of your segment is stuck to their pride and unbridled bravado. 

You present a perfect picture of the latter. Your recent lamentations on how Kenyans do not understand what you had in store for them, the silent goodies you were about to bring home seemed quite out of touch. 

Addressing a press conference on July 3, 2024 in Mombasa, you swore never to offer any apology to anyone for embracing the Finance Bill, 2024. You almost acted as our intercessor, seeking that the good Lord should open our eyes to see your good intentions particularly the intended allocations of bursaries, roads, farmers and teachers.

Before we could figure out these utterances, you have blasted your former colleagues, Nation and Citizen, in your social handles, ironically, on the very day when a young journalist was shot in Nakuru. You stood against the media when they needed you most. 

Let’s walk down this path. 

It is notable that since you issued the statement, a number of significant progresses have been made, good and pathetic. 

The Finance Bill, 2024 was not ascented to law, the cabinet was sent home, the long-awaited IEBC (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was assented to, harambees by public officers banned, recommendations to National Assembly to review downwards the budget lines for this FY 2024/2025 made. Unfortunately, we have lost over 50 people – many of them in the hands of the police.

Your intuition should have seen these! 

I raise herein seven reasons why you are out of order in your utterances, conduct and the catcall you released to your former computers. 

You seem to have forgotten. Just the other day, we watched you ‘pick’ the name, Jicho Pevu, in journalism. You shone bright, a reflection of a better future for the Nation. 

JOURNALIST

A few years ago, as a young slender journalist, you extended your sing song melodious intonation to bring forth the ills of governance to the public. You reverberated renaissance. From the expose on drug Lords, to the _Al-shabaab_, we watched and listened avidly. It looked like a little push would usher Kenya to a new dawn. You inspired a generation of coevals in the field.

The day you faced the head of DCI seeking answers in the alleged assassination of Jacob Juma, we heard the voice of justice. You demonstrated courage when you sought questions in the ill-fated murder of Saitoti. When you sought answers about the abhorrence at Kiambaa Church, you prickled the conscience of the executing political class and their operatives.

I fail to understand why Moha cannot appreciate the voice of the people in governance. Why almost seven decades after independence, a legislature cannot question heavy taxation against the people who accorded him the space to speak on their behalf. 

How you fail to appreciate your platform as a conveyor of the interest of the people. In refusing to apologize to Kenyans, you differ with the President’s concessions to this moment. 

As a student of history, I will remind you of the day the late President Moi, ridiculed Kanu delegates at Kasarani, like President Ruto did to you on this Finance Bill, 2024. In both instances, your ilk responded with ululations. The likes of JJ Kamotho, were then the Kanu honchos. 

MULTIPARTY

You see, in 1991, the Kanu delegates had urged the President not to be fazed with the clamour for change of constitution to reintroduce multiparty democracy when the President sought their views. 

However, the President would instantly change tune to allow the repeal of section 92 (a) of the constitution. The entire arena was up in jubilation, praising the president for being a statesman. 

That is the very way you were treated in June 2024. After passing the Finance Bill, 2024, your team went to celebrate the very denouncing of the Bill at Statehouse. There’s no way, Jicho Pevu should have agreed to such humiliation. 

Moha, pursuant to article 94 (2) of the constitution, Parliament manifests the diversity of the Nation, and represents the will of the people, and exercises their sovereignty. The anger around Finance Bill did not begin in 2024. It was manifest from the year 2023. 

In their own admission, the parliamentary committee on Finance received over 80 percent objections to the Bill last year. An independent survey by Twaweza and Centre for Fiscal Affairs placed the disapproval at 93 percent. In the very year, there were protests against the Bill, and calling for lowering the cost of life. 

In the hands of the police, we lost 75 people. You passed the law against the views of the people. As though that was not enough, within the very span of time, the National Assembly, presided over the legislation of Social Health Insurance Act, Housing Levy Act, Primary Health Care Act, Digital Health Care Act all declared unconstitutional and draconian. The court has since pronounced itself on the fate of the above legislations. 

Third, you probably haven’t internalized the change of constitutional architecture. It places the voices of people in the centre of policy making. The representatives in exercising delegated power are required to conduct public participation. Under the current dispensation, public views are elevated to a national value and principle of good governance. 

DISAPPROVAL

It is intended to realize the aspirations of the citizens. During the recent discourse on Finance Bill, 2024, the people of Kenya, including residents of Nyali expressed their disapproval of the Bill. On the contrary, we are yet to be shown results of an opinion poll indicating that Nyali residents intended something different.

How you do not consider these values worth your time baffles me. Alas, you had a bag of goodies that we didn’t ask for, and you will not apologize for the constitutional transgression. 

On account of the aftermath such as loss of life, destruction of property, and injuries occasioned to people, any ordinary leader who is sensitive to the mood of the Nation would apologize. As a matter of fact, it is on record that in a recent motion at the floor of the Senate, we saw Senators who opposed the Bill apologizing for the conduct of the entire political leadership. 

In respect to the deaths and the subsequent human rights violations, everyone who made Kenya reach the crescendo should humble themselves, and in the very least, apologize. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, has pronounced over 50 lives lost. In the Coastal region, the multisectoral team, where the Coast Civil Society Network for Human Rights plays a critical role, can confirm 4 lives have been lost.

Discernibly, should the members of National Assembly properly observe the mood of the Nation, and acted appropriately? The occurrences of June 2024, and the subsequent deaths could have been avoided. The agitation required you and colleagues to reflect on possible challenges that the Nation were to undergo. Deaths which occurred largely in the hands of the police should shame you.

Over the past few decades, the National Police Service have acted quite brusquely and visited serious human rights desecrations on Kenyans. The main oversight institution of the State, the National Assembly, has never seen the need to call for, and supervise reforms to professionalise the National Police Service.

Even after President Ruto “disbanded” the killer squad, you failed to seek justice for the victims of police brutality and in one of your interviews with Citizen’s Jeff Koinange, you bewailed how the same people baptised you, _Al-shabaab_ recruiter. 

You didn’t see the need to move a motion to set up a committee to look into what occurred in the last regime and for the avoidance of doubt, you have been serving at the National Assembly since 2017. I am sure that should you have done half the work you delivered as a journalist; we wouldn’t be here.

PUBLIC DEBT

Looked at keenly, one of the reasons Kenyans rejected the Finance Bill 2024, was the astronomical rise in Public Debt. The resources we spent irresponsibly, yet the State seeks to comply with their terms. 

The institution you serve cheered and approved spiralling of the Public Debt. Every year, the Auditor General raises alarm on poor spending of the state, there’s no single motion you brought to streamline spending. You didn’t even see a reason to scrutinize budget lines. In the very budget accompanying the Finance Bill, 2024, you failed to raise concerns about the wasteful expenditure lines brazenly bringing corruption to the fore.

The very Kenyans you are castigating for speaking out piled pressure on the President leading to elimination of confidential budget lines, allocations to spouses of politicians, retiring those due, collapsing 47 state corporations with duplicate mandates, cancelling offices of CASs among other duties. These measures alone will save the nation Ksh177 billion.

Moha will not apologize. 

Tied to this is the matter of corruption. I bet corruption has torn the underbelly of this Nation to a great extent. While you were serving your first term, the then President, Uhuru Kenyatta, indicated that we were losing Ksh2 billion on a daily basis.

APOLOGY 

We didn’t see a question, motion or a bill from your desk seeking clarifications on the looting. Now the least the Nyali people would ask for is an apology. But no, you shall never table it. In my considered view, having traded your past as a whistle-blower, you should at the very least, spearhead the realization of the Protection of Whistleblower Bill, 2023.

A bill drafted by the state in 2013, still lies somewhere in the pipeline. You haven’t taken any steps to run with it. Moha, it is not in your place to lecture Kenyans on how to tweak their voices against the agony of the political mess in this country. Your failure to apologize is loud enough, telling us you wouldn’t do it transcends to insult.

The inking against your former colleagues on the day when one of them is shot is way out of reason. On account of the gusto with which you thrust to the National limelight, do not announce your entry to the arena of shame so blatantly. 

In the wake of the recent protest, take your time to reflect. Seek to establish how it is that the younger generation had to muster courage and walk to death to awaken the conscience of the political class. Sad that it is happening while you are at an apex institution. It is time you took a break to find the answers on where the wrath of the rains visited you!

Adika is chair of Coast Civil Society Network for Human Rights

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