The other day, I met a Kikuyu man who asked me what side I was on in the ongoing conflict between supporters of ICC and a local tribunal. When I answered ICC, he argued, as a Kikuyu, I should support a local tribunal because taking Uhuru to The Hague would leave the Kikuyu community leaderless.To avoid this, the Kikuyu have at last decided to have a king by the name Uhuru Kenyatta. Like all other kings, Uhuru is not made king by people. He is anointed by Father Joachim Gitonga and Minister John Michuki and endorsed by Kikuyu masses in public rallies in Nanyuki, Muranga and Kiambu.
From now hence, should the Kikuyu accept Uhuru’s kingship, they will have only one leader or king, one spokesman, one voice, one mind and like sheep, one political position, a dictatorship that no other can surpass.
By asking me to support Uhuru, the young man was asking me to put Uhuru above the law and support his exemption from ICC, whether guilty or not, because the king is never wrong. And Churches have followed suit in Eldroret, Kiambu and Nakuru. They are praying for Uhuru and Ruto as if they are national heroes and not suspects of crimes against humanity. Imagine churches praying for suspects of genocide in Rwanda before they were taken to UN Tribunal at Arusha or suspects of perpetrating the holocaust before they were taken to Nuremberg in Germany.
But how did Uhuru come to qualify for kingship over the Kikuyu? He is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president. He has billions of money and as an Ocampo suspect he is walking in the footsteps of his father who was jailed by British colonialists.
Here the popular assumption is, as the son of the late President Jomo Kenyatta, Uhuru is born with royal blue blood of kingship over the Kikuyu and possession of this blue blood is all he needs to be the King of the Kikuyu and Kenya. Subsequently, any Kikuyu who questions this logic is a traitor and any Kenyan who doubts its correctness is anti-Kikuyu, mistaken and malicious. Uhuru himself said in the Murang’a meeting that any Kikuyus who will not toe the line, they will go for them in their homes.
However, all this talk about royal and blue blood running in the veins of Uhuru and other children of former presidents and ministers is sheer nonsense. No blood is royal or blue. All blood whether of kings or slaves is equally red. Only what we believe and how hard we work and think, makes us different.
As Kikuyu masses endorse their king Uhuru, they seem to think they have now found a mwarubaine or mugariga to all their problems. Indeed as prophet Samuel failed to convince Israeli people that kingship would hurt them and demanded to have a king merely because their neighbors had kings, so would anybody today fail to convince the Kikuyu aristocracy not to have Uhuru as their king. But as they imagine Uhuru leading them to presidential victory against king Ruto of the Kalenjin, king Raila of the Luo and king Kalonzo of the Kamba, they forget their obligations to him that will make them his first victim.
As king and unknown to the Kikuyu masses, Uhuru shall be first and foremost the protector of Kikuyu aristocracy and their properties and first master of all Kikuyu people. In return, as his subjects, both aristocracy and wretched of the earth will sing his song only. None of them will criticize him. Their properties will be his to keep or give away. Their sons and daughters will be his cannon fodder and foot soldiers. No Kikuyu man or woman will again enjoy the right to challenge or seek his kingship. And king Uhuru will ride their uncomplaining shoulders to the kingship of Kenya.
But how did the Kikuyu get where they are? First and foremost, they have allowed themselves to be manipulated with money. Second their ethnic chiefs have terrified them to believe they must have a king to survive against other communities that have kings Ruto, Raila and Kalonzo. And most important, Kikuyus have lost their freedom to think beyond their community.
As supporters of Uhuru cite his strengths, even Kikuyu professors, lawyers, doctors and bishops refuse to look at his disqualifications such as inherited leadership, corroboration with and penchant for dictatorship, inheritance of enormous lands and inherent inability to champion eradication of poverty, corruption and negative ethnicity whose wave he hopes to ride to State House.
As king of the Kikuyu, not only cannot Uhuru be questioned for his failures, many believe he is above the law and Ocampo cannot justly indict him. But if denying the Kikuyu Uhuru’s leadership is considered worse than committing crimes against humanity for which he is charged, why can’t these crimes be casually committed in future? Ironically, most victims of crimes against humanity have been Kikuyu men, women and children.
But how can the Kikuyu, one of the most highly educated communities not just in Kenya, East Africa and Africa believe that only one family in the community can lead them and the nation? Is this an act of communal survival or suicide? And how can a community unable to accept a simple fact like leadership cannot be confined to one family only be expected or trusted to provide leadership in other areas of society and economy of Kenya?
Just to defend Uhuru and campaign for his kingship, Kikuyus have become politically dwarfed, diminished, de-nationalized and reduced to a mere community when they could be larger and bigger as Kenyans, East Africans, Africans and citizens of the world!To save Uhuru, I see the Kikuyu losing Kenya (hood). Is this price worthy it?
Even putting Uhuru above other Kikuyus is sacrilegious. Which other Kikuyu is defended by the community, not on basis of innocence but ethnicity when they are charged in court? And as a Kikuyu, if for Uhuru I should lose Kenya, my right to stand for presidency or speak freely, ICC justice and safety of life as a dissident, what shall I gain in return?
Lastly, why are kings Ruto and Uhuru mobilizing masses, to protest and fight if and when they are jailed?
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