African Eminent Persons Benjamin Mkapa and Kofi Annan on their visit to Kenya last week were snubbed by the President. State House gave many convoluted reasons.
There might have been a simpler reason. Could it have been because Uhuru’s campaign told State House not to see them? In addition to State House, it was only Uhuru who made comments justifying the snub. Uhuru said Annan and Mkapa were “mere tourists who had no right to meddle in Kenya’s politics”. (The Star, 2 October 2012).
Uhuru went on, “My focus is on Kenya, the region (East Africa) and the Continent. No Kenyan or African has said Uhuru [Note the third person reference to himself, like Napoleon] should not vie for the presidency, so the rest can stay away if they don’t want to associate with us.” (Daily Nation, 2 October 2012).
But though Uhuru did not notice it, being too busy choosing which insults to use, Annan and Mkapa are from Africa which he pretends to have a focus on.
Benjamin Mkapa is past President of Tanzania. He worked closely for a long time with Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, was a highly respected Foreign Minister and has wide Pan-African experience.
Kofi Annan is from Ghana, is the immediate past UN Secretary-General as Africa’s nominee, holding that post for two terms by virtue of the continent of Africa’s turn in that post.
He is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Uhuru has only denigrated the implementation of African solutions to African problems. Clearly, Uhuru’s ‘focus’ on Africa is mere words.
Uhuru also threw some stones at the US and the UK. It does not help. Rather we should all remember who had a British MI6 member in his Independence Cabinet for a long time, who abandoned Pan-African policies, who forgot the Mau Mau after 1963, who needed British troops to stay in office, and who grew up as the product of all this. Can such products care about former freedom fighters, East Africa or Africa?
It is only when the Eminent Persons attacked the Government, that Uhuru’s propaganda outfit attacked the Eminent Persons. Which is that proverb that goes something like this : Kick the dog and you will soon learn who its master is. Did that come into play?
Has Uhuru’s campaign now become the master of Kenya’s Government in these few remaining months? If so, it explains a lot about what is going on.
If not, Uhuru had no mandate to speak on the State visitors. He is not the Foreign Minister. Yet Uhuru’s advisers, the oracles of bad manners wanted to tell them off : Uhuru thus said, the past help of Annan and Mkapa does not “give them a ticket to be coming here at will whenever they have no other place to go.” (The Star, 2 Oct 2012).
Bretton Woods and advisers to the State Department who naively were impressed last year, should now know better where such a Government will stand, and where it is looking for alternatives: (“friends are many” (The Star 2 October 2012 ).
To run down persons older than oneself and to insult them while they are still within our home as our guests is not African social etiquette.
Those who insult like this and justify it in the name of Africa are out of the African focus they prattle about. If this is what such individuals do when they have a little power, what will they not do when they have the highest office and power? There is no need to change generations, there is need to change manners.
After Uhuru has approved the way the President has treated President Mkapa of Tanzania, Uhuru’s purported ‘focus’ on East Africa and the region is mere words.
It only confirms Tanzania’s suspicions of Kenya’s economic and political intentions of grabbing and acquisition in the East African Community.
Finally Uhuru says, “We will not allow a group of people to sit in a room and decide who will be president of Kenya.” (Daily Nation 2 October 2012).
Exactly. That is exactly what the rest of Kenya is saying : We will not allow a small economic and political elite to sit in a room at State House or at a golf club in secret meetings and decide who will be the president of the rest of the Kenya again.
This small elite has shown continuously that it will never rule in the interests of all Kenyans but only in its own sectoral interests. And Uhuru is their candidate.
The writer is a lawyer
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