Michael Mundia Kamau
P.O. Box 58972
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya

12th December 2005

      ARAP KIBAKI

Ford-Kenya leader, Musikari Kombo and NPK leader,
Charity Ngilu, are on the verge of being politically
duped in a huge, scandalous and most embarrassing
manner, in the ongoing sham negotiations for them to
rejoin President Mwai Kibaki’s Government. The list of
demands being made by both have clearly been overtaken
by events, and are unworkable, ridiculous and comical.
President Mwai Kibaki would certainly not have gone
through with the swearing in of his reconstituted
cabinet on Wednesday, 7th December 2005, if he only
remotely felt that a fallout from both Musikari Kombo
and Charity Ngilu, would have serious repercussions on
his rule. Both are now the laughing stock of Kenya and
beyond, as they nakedly expose their most amateur
grasp of politics.

It is taking an enormously long time for certain
elementary matters to register. Literally all
commentaries, editorials, write-ups and analyses,
continue to make reference to “the huge and
embarrassing loss”, suffered by President Mwai Kibaki
and his government at the November 21st 2005
constitutional review referendum. Some commentaries
have even gone as far as even blaming the Intelligence
network for “failing to relay accurate information”,
to their boss. It is time that we started taking
leadership and politics much more seriously than we
do.

Whichever way one looks at it, Mwai Kibaki was going
to emerge winner at the referendum, whichever way the
vote went. How could he have lost when he still
retains the enormous powers of the current
constitution? The referendum vote would only really
have counted if it was a choice between either the
Wako Draft and the Bomas Draft, but President Kibaki
and his allies cleverly took care of this much earlier
through a sham parliamentary vote. The whole
referendum matter, like former President Moi’s
“failed” Project Uhuru of 2002, was a cleverly
choreographed decoy, to make it seem that the
continued existence of the current government, relied
entirely on the outcome of the November 21st 2005
vote. In other words, President Kibaki’s government
would only survive if it won the referendum vote. What
happened after the apparent government loss, confirms
the referendum as state sponsored political decoy:

President Kibaki “honourably conceded” defeat on 22nd
November 2005, emphasising that there was no “vacuum”,
and that the current constitution would continue to be
upheld. The following day, Wednesday, 23rd November
2005, President Kibaki dissolved his cabinet. A day
after, Thursaday, 24th November 2005, President Kibaki
prorogued parliament, to delay any possible vote of no
confidence in he and his government as he reorganised
his marshals, and equally importantly, to prevent
parliament from further extending the mandate of the
Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC), which
will now die a natural death. There was no panic from
President Kibaki as he effected this actions in
calculated composed sequence, and it is amazing that
no one has pointed this out. President Kibaki’s
cordial meeting with former President Moi on 28th
November 2005, could even have been designed to make
him appear desperate. In the interceding period, the
Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), oscillated between
defiance, threats and compromise, exposing themselves
as possibly the more desperate and disorganised of
both opposing camps. One such particular incident
stands out as significant and curious: after an ODM
Naivasha retreat sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert
Foundation, the ODM issued a reconciliatory statement,
indicating that it was ready to sit down at round
table talks with President Kibaki, exposing the fact
that ODM has no agenda or finances of it’s own, and is
relying on sponsors for direction, formulation of
policy and financing. To all intents and purposes, ODM
is just as desperate as Musikari Kombo and Charity
Ngilu.

Equally as bad is the entire Kenyan media for it’s
failure to provide incisive and investigative
journalism, that would enable the public see through
many of these ploys. On whose side is the Kenyan
media, and why is it deliberately standing in the way
of transformation in Kenya, by keeping on running
mundane amateur stories of no value to the Kenyan
public? History will harshly judge the entire current
crop of Kenyan journalists. The one attempt to break
from the drudgery is carried in the following poignant
statement carried in the lead story of “The Standard”
of Monday, 12th December 2005: “Though Ford-Kenya’s
top officials were upbeat that the President would
meet his part of the deal, it was not immediately
clear what the President’s strategy was. Efforts to
get a comment from the head of Presidential Service
Director failed as calls went unanswered”. The
handwriting is on the wall.



Michael Mundia Kamau