History will judge Kibaki as Kenya’s best president

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By MAKAU MUTUA
Posted  Saturday, January 12  2013 at  19:23

IN SUMMARY

• That’s not a misprint – Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki, the son of an Othaya peasant – tops his predecessors

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In March – or soon thereafter – President Mwai Kibaki will be an ex-president, a “has-been”. He’ll pack his bags and exit State House. He’ll either head to his native Othaya, or to his leafy Muthaiga digs.

But what’s he leaving behind? What’s in his rear view mirror? This is the unavoidable legacy question.

When history is written, Mr Kibaki will go down as Kenya’s best president. No, that’s not a misprint – Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki, the son of an Othaya peasant – tops his predecessors.

It’s not even close – Mr Kibaki’s achievements are gargantuan. But so are his mistakes. However, it’s his achievements that history will remember. You can take that to the bank.

Mr Kibaki was a powerful public figure when I was growing up. His legend was etched in stone in 1974 when Time – the venerable American publication – named him among 100 people in the world likely to become head of state.

Time was prescient because 38 years later – in 2002 – he was elected President. It wasn’t until 1992 that I first met Mr Kibaki upon his defection from Kanu on Christmas day the year before. We met in his DP party offices.

He was relaxed in an open-neck shirt. The air was serene around him, even though Kenya was gripped by a deadly struggle for multipartyism. He spoke about democracy, and how a DP government would rebuild a tattered economy.

Although Mr Kibaki is by nature benign, he’s had an ambivalent relationship with democracy. It was Mr Kibaki who in 1982 moved the motion on Section 2A – seconded by minister Charles Njonjo – to make Kenya a de jure one-party state.

It was Mr Kibaki again who in 1991 infamously intoned – against the clamour for multipartyism – that dislodging Kanu from power was like “cutting a mugumo (fig tree) with a razor blade”. Weeks later, he left Kanu in a huff.

He believed there wasn’t a path to the presidency with Mr Moi – who’d demoted him as VP – as leader of Kanu. But he wouldn’t join the more popular FORD, which he thought too radical. DP was a right-of-centre pro-business party.

Mr Kibaki failed to make the presidency in 1992 and 1997 on a DP ticket. But the third time was a charm in 2002 when Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga cried “Kibaki Tosha” and handed the Narc ticket to Mr Kibaki. Narc, the united opposition juggernaut, beat Mr Moi’s hand-picked Kanu successor Uhuru Kenyatta to a pulp.

Of eight provinces, Mr Kenyatta only carried Mr Moi’s Rift Valley. Mr Kibaki feasted on the rest, including Central Province, to his fill. I was at Uhuru Park on December 29, 2002 when Mr Kibaki gave the memorable historic speech decrying dictatorship and promising democracy and prosperity. I had never been more proud to be Kenyan.

But were the dark days over? On that day, at Uhuru Park, we were “unbwogable” (unbeatable). We sang “yote yawezekana bila Moi” (all’s possible without Moi). Mr Kibaki got off to a fast start.

But efforts to start a truth commission, fight corruption, reform the judiciary, solve the Goldenberg scandal, and pass a new Constitution ran aground. The Narc coalition collapsed.

The corrupt networks and former regime elements reorganised, and killed the Narc “revolution”.

But Mr Kibaki managed several remarkable achievements – he brought back the economy, built infrastructure, collected revenue, and rehabbed schools. Tourists came back, agriculture boomed, and Kenya’s exports flourished.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta built a strong economy, but during a simpler, naive era. However, Mzee bequeathed Kenya a tribal kleptocracy.

Tolerate a lot

Kenyans will tolerate a lot if you put food on the table. They cut Mr Kibaki slack even though mega corruption engulfed his regime. None was more damaging than Anglo Leasing. He also retribalised the State – this time with folks from his own Mount Kenya backyard. This shocked me because I had never thought of him as a tribalist.

In fact, we at the Kenya Human Rights Commission endorsed him for President. Kalenjin bureaucrats – with whom Mr Moi had flooded the State – were flushed out. A cabal of powerful politicians, technocrats, and wheeler-dealers, known as the “Mt Kenya Mafia,” took over the State. It wasn’t clear between them and Mr Kibaki who controlled who.

Then Mr Kibaki made two huge blunders. In 2005, he was soundly trounced when he tried to force an illegitimate constitution down the country’s throat.

In 2007, he presided over the most divisive election in the country’s history. Near genocidal violence almost sent Kenya to hell. We will never know for sure who truly won that election, which Mr Raila Odinga contends was stolen.

But we know that it scarred Kenya, and tragically lowered the country’s dignity abroad. But Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga reluctantly shared power, and the economy came back – again. Even with the mayhem of 2008, Mr Kibaki has overseen a period of enormous growth in IT, infrastructure, agriculture, and universal education.

Economic growth aside, the 2010 Constitution will forever be Mr Kibaki’s biggest monument. That’s his singular, and most important, legacy. It won’t be post-election violence and The Hague cases, although they are critical. Mr Kibaki was able to “pistol-whip” key PNU “watermelons” to support the constitutional referendum.

I had never seen the man so energised as he stumped for the charter.

His critics say that Mr Kibaki never saw a fence he didn’t sit on. They are wrong because he brought the Constitution home – to us. That’s why he’s Kenya’s greatest president.

Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC. Twitter @makaumutua