| WITH AN EAGLE EYE: Congratulations to the people of Kenya | Send to a friend |
| Thursday, 02 September 2010 23:16 |
 The people of the Republic of Kenya on August 27, 2010, entered a new world of true democracy after promulgating the new Constitution they had voted for on August 4, 2010.Our northern neighbours have made an about-turn away from the tyranny of the state in which one man carries more power than the gods. It looks like the invention of multiparty democracy didn’t solve the puzzle in the 1990s. About five decades ago African people made a wonderful job when they kicked out the colonisers but the newly independent states created a strongman with a stick called Mr President. Today, a majority of African countries are still soaked in that madness. Take Malawi for example; the strongman in power, President Bingu wa Mutharika, is running the government like his personal property firing ministers and changing Vice Presidents without any plausible explanation. His opponents are worried that perhaps President Mutharika wants to hand over the presidency to his sibling. In Rwanda, another strongman, President Paul Kagame, despite being “popular,” he couldn’t tolerate his political opponents even a bit in the recently held election. Not surprisingly, one journalist was murdered mysteriously in the capital Kigali and a former Rwandan general was shot in South Africa. Ugandans are now waiting to find out to whom their strongman President Yoweri Museveni will award the presidency when he gets tired, and people won’t be shocked if that person is his son. In Burundi, the poorly conducted election has reinstalled another strongman-to-be, Pierre Nkurunziza. Africans, we are done with military dictators but we still have are a lot of benevolent dictators. We are still mired by the demons of the colonial legacy under Westminster type of constitutions that care less about the people. Kenyans, indeed, after a long struggle, detentions, tortures and extrajudicial killings, are at last victors. The new Constitution has assured hope to the current as well as the future generations of Kenya. The “No” team, led by former president Daniel arap Moi and his political henchmen, a couple of misguided clergymen and ignorant people, couldn’t stop Kenyans from attaining the real independence. President Moi, who tormented Kenyans for 24 years, had his own reasons to stop Kenyans from forming the Second Republic but he has learnt his lessons. The Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga last week in his article published by the Nairobi-based Daily Nation observed: “The old order has died and a new one born in our country. Our imprisonment in the colonial constitutional dispensation is over. The Imperial Presidency that the post-colonial regimes have created is now buried in history. A grand new republic — Kenya’s Second Republic – is born.” It’s true. Mr Odinga is a fighter from the early 1960s when he went to the then East Germany for studies using the passport given to him by President Julius Nyerere of the newly independent state of Tanganyika, later the United Republic of Tanzania. According to Mr Odinga’s own account, after the British colonial rulers denied him traveling documents, his father, who later became the first Vice President of independent Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, informed President Nyerere. In respect of African independence struggles, Nyerere ordered the issuance of passport. Today Mr Odinga’s fighting spirit is building a new Kenya. Unfortunately for Kenyans, another African tyrant, President Omar Ali Bashir of Sudan, spoiled their party when he honored a secret invitation by a section of President Mwai Kibaki’s government. President Bashir has an arrest warrant on his head issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which requires all signatory states like Kenya to arrest him. The case of President Bashir is complicated and today shouldn’t be the day to dwell on him, but what we clearly have in Khartoum is another regime that benefits from the colonial-style constitution. The new Kenyan Constitution which has more than 200 pages fully respects the separation of powers between the Executive, the Parliament and the Judiciary. The highly detailed Constitution sets a proper system for checks and balances and empowers every citizen in Kenya. Without exaggeration, it’s one of the best constitutions in the world. Kenyan ministers will no longer be drawn from the Parliament and every presidential appointment will have to undergo parliamentary scrutiny while the number of government ministries is now restricted to between 14 and 22. Wonderful! The Kenyan Judiciary Service Commission will now recommend the names of new judges to the President before undergoing parliament screening on the way to appointment. Practically, the new Constitution creates no room for nepotism. This kind of checks and balances is rarely found in Africa as most of our countries leave everything in the hands of just one leader who is human like anybody else. That’s why Kenyans deserve a lot of praise for dumping the burden of colonial legacy. Congratulations Kenyans. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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