Pleas for public sympathy will not help leaders

 

By PHILIP OCHIENGPosted Saturday, January 22 2011 at 16:43

What to target? It is an ingenious piece of technology — on a par with a Dutch dyke — invented by a whiz kid called William Ruto a few years ago to stem the tide of all political tsunamis.

And it is audacious in its simplicity.

All you do is to shout at the top of your voice: “I am a target!!!”

The tempest then simply stops and — in Exodus style — simply splits itself into two so that “God’s people” can pass into paradise. And every one of Kenya’s politicos has become an expert in its manipulation.

Adepts include Charity Ngilu and Henry Kosgey, two ODM stalwarts about whom an ODM courtier called Rachel Shebesh has composed inspiring poetry of late.

But the PNU’s Naomi Shabaan, the Gender minister, is the shiniest of all those who deploy the word “target” to the greatest profit.

Isn’t Patrick Lumumba — the targeter-in-chief – a tad too enthusiastic about his job?

Why should he target Shabaan of all the people? That was the question Shabaan herself posed, shouting for the whole world to hear: “I am completely innocent”.

The only question is: Why tell us what we already know?

Doesn’t our law say that you are innocent until a court of law declares you otherwise? Indeed, Kenya must be the only country where a suspect simply stands in the marketplace to holler: “I am innocent”.

That, indeed, was how most Kenyans knew that Mr Ruto might be on Senor Ocampo’s list.

English calls it “self-incrimination”. Mr Ruto started incriminating himself — and he is still doing it — long before the Argentine prosecutor announced the names of the six Kenyans to be charged in The Hague with crimes committed in the aftermath of the controverted General Election of December, 2007.

That is the surprising thing about Ms Shabaan’s conduct.

It is from her — not from Otieno Lumumba — that we know that the minister might be one of the anti-corruption commission’s “targets”.

Wouldn’t she have been a trifle wiser to let Lumumba accuse her in public before she burst out about her innocence”?

Such an outburst is unwise because it is self-defeating. The public’s mentality is such that, by bursting out in such panicky circumstances, you are unwittingly exposing a guilty conscience.

Moreover, you are addressing the wrong audience. Once you enter any prosecutor’s book, whether you are innocent or not, it will not get you off the hook by uttering your innocence to a non-judicial audience.

But the game she and Ms Shebesh are playing is notorious the world over.

They are trying to appeal to another aspect of the public’s psychology, namely, the ease with which the mob can be swayed — the way some individuals have persuaded their tribes-people that Mr Ocampo’s list is “political” and aimed against those tribes.

Certainly, the ODM seems to dominate the list of officials so far touched. But so what?

Who says that it is inconceivable for all the names “targeted” for prosecution in crime to be ODM officials — or PNU or Ford People or Narc or Ford Kenya? In circumstances of general national corruption, it is difficult to assume this. But it is not unthinkable.

That is why it is dangerous to try to intimidate Lumumba with statements like he is “peddling lies”. Who can imagine even a single benefit that Lumumba can hope to bag by cooking up evidence against Ms Shabaan or anybody else?

On the contrary, I can imagine Lumumba suing somebody for libel.

Even if you are innocent, shouting is futile in public because only a judge can absolve you.

But it is the height of irresponsibility to try to make political capital by appealing for public sympathy against a prosecutor in what is wholly personal. But don’t listen, Lumumba , carry on.