Before I proceed, I need to pose a question. Have Kenyans grown mature enough to debate sensitive political questions of importance – like a hundred days of Jubilee government – frankly and freely without meaningless incriminations?
From the onset, let me state that my criticism of Jubilee government is not personal. I merely search for truth about where Jubilee government is taking Kenya before we all get lost.
In my heart of hearts, I would rather any Kenyan government succeeds rather than fails because any such success would be good for government, the nation, me and my children.
It stands to logic that failure for any Kenyan government is bad for government, Kenya, me and my children and everything possible must be done to avoid failure by looking truth in the face. Has Jubilee government then registered success or failure in its first 100 days in power?
In my opinion, in the last 100 days, Jubilee government has registered more failure than success because of unavoidable circumstances of its birth.
In judging Jubilee government we must first consider that both President Uhuru and Deputy President Ruto are indicted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and their arraignment there has done more harm to the image of this country than any other thing since independence.
Yet, Uhuru and Ruto could have saved the country this pain if both had chosen not to vie for high office or voters had decided to skip their leadership until their names are cleared. Prosecution of Kenya’s top leadership at The Hague will remain a Sword of Damocles for both the country and the accused until it is over.
Given the ICC trap they are in, President Uhuru and Deputy President Ruto will use their government, not for the country’s development and people’s service, but self preservation and survival.
We may love President Uhuru and Deputy President Ruto, but prosecution at The Hague has injured them making it impossible for them to bring us gold medals from the Olympics of good governance. Injured Olympians can only guarantee failure and that’s where Kenya is headed under a Jubilee government.
When any leadership is handicapped or incapacitated, it becomes the lead sheep, which if it limps, the flock cannot reach the pastures. From President Obama’s snubbing of Kenya and Prime Minister Cameron’s snubbing of a photo session with President Uhuru, the limping of Jubilee government has become more prominent.
President Uhuru and Deputy President Ruto say they are primarily focused on developing and transforming the country more than anything else. But can the Jubilee government succeed to develop and transform the country when Kenya is fourth most corrupt and Kenyan companies most corrupt in the world.
Jubilee government says it cannot forgo 16 per cent VAT tax of Sh10 billion or Sh46 billion that teachers are fighting for. But every year the country loses one third of its annual income – about Sh300 billion – to graft which if stopped the country would pay teachers their allowances, save the common man from VAT and make a surplus of more than Sh200 billion a year.
But does Jubilee government have the capacity to end corruption in Kenya? I believe it doesn’t as long as recommendations of Duncan Ndegwa’s commission allow civil servants to partake in business and corruption while in government employment.
How will Jubilee government tackle corruption when it does not mobilise masses to demonstrate against increasing corruption or utter a word of surprise or explanation when the Deputy President is found guilty of illegally taking a common man’s land with impunity?
There is also the matter of old corruption from which our top leaders are said to have benefited from by the TJRC report. The government has already received a copy of this report but shows absolutely no interest or intent to punish or remedy the injustice of old corruption within its 100 days in power.
How can we then suppose there will be better days ahead as far as corruption is concerned or even believe there will be a Jubilee miracle of ending corruption without addressing the problem? We are celebrating the impossible if we believe the Jubilee government has the capacity to end corruption or develop the country in the days ahead.
The Jubilee electoral victory was based on the corruption of liberal distribution of handouts to voters. To the extent that our politics remain money based, corruption will continue to reign supreme.
If the Jubilee government will develop Kenya, it must unify its 42 communities and not just the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin who form the bedrock of their coalition.
Yet the Jubilee coalition is built upon a foundation of ethnic bogeymen. How can negative ethnicity be eradicated when it is the tiger upon whose back Uhuru and Ruto rode to State House?
And how can the country unite when its government is built upon the participation of two leaders, their cronies and their two communities? The first 100 days of Jubilee government have not been of ethnic unity but growing ethnic divisions with no cure in sight.
If Uhuru and Ruto will take us to the Promised Land, they must show us the yet to be disclosed ideological and moral compass that will unfailingly take us there.
For now I don’t know where President Uhuru and Deputy President Ruto are taking us. The bus has a driver but no roadmap or a destination. We are marooned.
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