NYONG'O

At a time Kenyans are still grappling with the pain of the mass killings after the bitterly disputed 2007 Presidential election, and also struggling to find ways to dispense justice, an accusation of inciting ethnic hatred is the most scurrilous charge one could make against a leader.

And yet that is exactly what one Moses Kuria has been pandering lately.

Having failed to generate sufficient news coverage, he took out a full page ad in the Sunday Nation alleging the Prime Minister had tried in a recent Kass FM interview to turn the Kalenjin against other communities living in the Rift Valley.

Mr Kuria says in the ad that he was filled with “unimaginable fear” as he listened to the PM’s “dangerous” interview!

If anyone is fanning incitement among communities, it is Mr Kuria with the divisive but unsuccessful campaign he has launched.

INTERESTINGLY, HE HAS BEGUN HIS scurrilous crusade – whose not so hidden motive is to portray the ODM leader as an enemy of the people of Mt Kenya – just as the PM had undertaken two historic visits to that area.

The visits to these Meru and Murang’a were to familiarise the PM with the concrete aspirations of the people for peace, development and a better life, and to understand how the Government, and the PM, could help them in overcoming the obstacles they see standing in their way.

The visits were also designed to promote national cohesion and reconciliation.

Indeed, on the very day that Mr Kuria’s full page ad appeared, there were articles in the media highlighting the impact of these visits, and the appreciation the people.

Mr Kuria’s divisive campaign also comes at a time Kenyans are close to adopting a Constitution after a 20 year struggle. His is surely a desperate attempt to divert national attention from the key issue of reforms that ensure no community is ever again excluded.

A small minority of politicians have resorted to tribal incitement to prevent passage of the Constitution to protect ill-gotten wealth and power.

There are men and women of goodwill who have genuine reservations about some aspect of the Constitution, but there is a small cabal which opposes it to protect their privileges through protecting the status quo.

People do not want their parties to be divisive and to be ethnically partisan.

There is rightly great competition as political parties woo voters to their banner, but in a country as diverse as Kenya, with no community constituting a majority, only a political party seeking to provide sectarian leadership would want to exclude any community from its umbrella.

Kenyans know that ODM is not such a party. It is the country’s largest political entity, with more than twice as many MPs as its closest rival. Its political representation is dispersed more nationally.

That this is so is in part the result of the PM’s own long history of commitment to nationalist and indeed Pan African ideals.

In any event, as ODM leader, it would be suicidal for him to be inciting against any community. The same applies to him as MP for Langata, which is one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in the nation and whose seat he won with strong support from all communities.

In his incitement accusation, Mr. Kuria does not quote a single sentence that the PM might have used to incite the Kalenjin, exposing his crude attempt to demonise the PM without cause.

He quotes only one word the PM used, “peremende” (sweets), claiming that when the PM said these were being offered to the Kalenjin by those they were fighting in the 2007 election, he was referring to ethnic fighting!

MR KURIA SEEMS TO HAVE FORGOTTEN that the 2007 election was “fought” between ODM and PNU, not between communities living in the Rift Valley.

It was that momentous election struggle that the PM was referring to in the interview, a struggle that ODM decisively won but in which all communities, including Mr Kuria’s, voted in large numbers for both parties.

As is now becoming clear in all parts of the country, the effect of the huge national reconciliation drive that we embarked upon two years ago is already being felt. Kenyans will not be so easily fooled by Mr Kuria’s kind of ethnic incitement.

Prof Nyong’o, the MP for Kisumu Rural, is also the secretary-general of the Orange Democratic Movement.