Is it too late for the real Kibaki to stand up?

By KIPKOECH TANUI

Is President Kibaki fully in charge? Yes I know like lawyers would tell you, of course he is because the Constitution says so. His usual sycophants will ask how I dare ask such a question and dismiss me as one living for the day he would be out of office.

Then he himself and his handlers may think I am stoking the embers of that debate on First Lady Lucy being the co-pilot by the mere fact he is our pilot.

Dear friends, I am very far from all these. I asked the question because I know power is useless if you have it but do not exercise, or if you wield but misuse it. Power is just like soap, you can carry in your pocket for days but it won't make you clean unless you apply it on your body.

As African history has proved, there are many cases of power slipping from the hands of aging leaders in their last years in office, with tragic consequences to their careers, legacy and families, or even lives. This week, as if to prove the last fool in power had not left the African hut, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, who took office in 2000, was beaten to shame in election re-run and forced to concede defeat.

Not that the defeat was surprising for this "Mugabe of West Africa" who at 86 manipulated the Constitution to allow him another term, but at the end of it, he stood out as a study in what power can do to an African gentleman.

He after all was a good teacher of law in a university in France where I guess he must have learnt of the story of Louis XVI and his gluttonous wife Marie Antoinette, and how at the height of their imperviousness to reason ended up being guillotined, which is a milder word for beheading.

Now we saw it in Jomo Kenyatta, the grand old man of Kenya's politics, at whose last years in office, was merely a symbolic figure in office. The actual rulers were the top cream of his community such as Mbiyu Koinange, Charles Njonjo, James Gichuru, Njoroge Muigai, Mwai Kibaki, and Gikonyo Kiano.

The lost decade

That is why even political minions then such as Njenga Karume and Kihika Kimani could make some members of Cabinet curl their tails and flee to the washrooms. So many of Kenya's problems today are probably linked to what we can call the lost decade, which is Kenyatta's last year in office.

The last years of retired President Moi also had its challenges, only that he handed power peacefully, even though his preferred candidate, whom Kibaki has inherited and is giving an extreme makeover in the hope he will look better than he was in 2002, lost.

But it was not unusual to hear even Moi's harshest critics say he was a good and gracious old man misled by those around him. The trees of corruption his regime inherited from Kenyatta shot up to near maturity in his tenure just like tribalism, but under Kibaki both cursed vines matured and are now sagging with succulent fruits ¨C and the class of pickers are well-known.

Now Kibaki is in his last year, and unlike Kenyatta and Moi, he has got a lot more to lose when he retires. Just imagine him being outside State House, watching on television Uhuru Kenyatta and Francis Muthaura squirming in Charles Taylor's and Slobodan Milosevic's seats in The Hague courtroom, and there is nothing he can do about it.

One is the son of his mentor and through whom he wanted to return favours that came his way dating back to 1960s. The other is a man who probably took the bullet for him, because it is unlikely that Muthaura would have made any decision without either consulting the President, or disbelieving it was in his favour. As for William Ruto and Joshua arap Sang, I can't talk of them in this context because they exist only because they are in the fryer with their buddies.

As the sun sets on the reign of this President, he appears to be making too many blunders for his age and political sobriety. Just yesterday, for the first time since January, Uhuru was in Cabinet, another sign yet that if Kibaki could have his way, we would not need elections - he will just hand over the keys to the son of his friend.

I am not in anyway suggesting that Uhuru or any of the Ocampo Four is guilty of the crimes for which he is facing. It is just that we first need to know if his hands are clean so that he can join the rest of us in eating from the same plate as in a family in communion.

Hidden hand?

The reason I asked if Kibaki is fully in charge is that with the revival of Gema, the same hound these communities crafted to try and stop Moi and intimidate the rest of the county, the reshuffle of Cabinet to make it as friendly to the ICC suspects and hostile to The Hague as much as possible, and the sending of Kalonzo Musyoka to Sudan President Omar Al Bashir, seem too obvious and careless to be the work of the Kibaki we know.

The motive is more glaring than daylight robbery and that is why even on his acrobatic skit on the election date, I seem to see a hidden hand!

Either the President has decided to make ICC his biggest business and forget the rest of us as he leaves office or someone else, who stands to gain, is pulling the strings.

The writer is Managing Editor, Daily Editions, at The Standard.

ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke