What Does Uhuru Really Stand For?

Tuesday, 29 March 2011 00:03 BY DAVID MAKALI

For a long time Uhuru Kenyatta has cultivated the image of a secretive receding politician who shies from speaking out his mind on controversial issues. Whenever he was expected to take a stand on national issues, Uhuru retreated back to consult family, political godfathers and community. But more recently, he has become exceptionally vocal with his being named by Moreno Ocampo as a potential perpetrator of the 2008 post-election violence.
But as he steps forward and whips up a political storm, many questions linger over his whole mission and whether the strategy will work. Uhuru is still dogged by the tag of a 'project’ many years after ex-president Daniel arap Moi introduced him to politics and tried to groom him to be his successor. Every step he makes seems reminiscent of that plot and calculated to accomplish that unfinished mission.
It is either poor strategy or the nasty politics that have frustrated his climb to the top. Almost ten years since Moi installed him at the helm of the Kanu party, his imprint on it is insignificant. Although he is the blue-eyed boy of the system, he still has to elbow for room and consort with friends to keep his mission alive. The past ten years he has dabbled in this and that short-lived alliance, swung between the opposition and government but moneyed Uhuru still sounds like a frustrated politician struggling to find his footing.
Although he is the chairman of Kanu, he has gravitated towards the Party of National Unity, Kibaki’s 2007 patchwork of mainly Central province outfits, with which Uhuru finds natural affinity. His strategy of inheriting Kibaki’s vehicle and reaching out to other areas for top up votes is being resisted by potential aspirants such as Martha Karua, George Saitoti and Peter Kenneth, who smell a whiff of hereditary politics at play.
Uhuru has announced that he is coming our to fight and fight isn’t he, oh boy! But his forays and alliance-building outside Central Kenya are suspect and opportunistic at best. One can sympathise with his predicament being faced with the ICC, and an outgoing Kikuyu presidency. He has clearly stated in response to ICC’s summonses that all he did in 2008 was to “help his
people” and vowed that he would do the same again in similar circumstances.
That sounds like the stuff of a political martyr. We do not know what heroic things he did but we will hopefully know when he and Moreno Ocampo face each other in the Hague. Surely one cannot be charged with crimes against humanity for merely providing blankets, food and transport to displaced people.
But isn’t it strange that Uhuru’s comrade in arms and ally now is his counterpart (at the Hague) in allegedly perpetrating attacks against Uhuru’s “people”. Kenyans may have to wait for the alliance to mature, but there is an eerie feeling that this is a partnership consecrated in the innocent blood of victims of post-election violence.
I read in one weekend newspaper that Uhuru had declared in Meru that he and his allies have now ditched their offices to conduct “serious politics” and fight Raila because he is the one “who caused the chaos after he refused to concede defeat” and that he should be the “one to be arrested to ensure this does not happen again.”
Uhuru further said that because Raila had confessed he took part in the attempted coup in 1982, he should be in jail. But the clincher was Uhuru’s assertion that “in 2007, Raila vied, was beaten, refused to accept defeat and called for violence.”
If indeed Uhuru said these things and they are all true, then I think the ICC is doing a very shoddy job. But why has Uhuru taken so long to tell the world these 'truths’? And what are the Kenya police still investigating?
Now we all know the genesis of this “serious politics” and Uhuru is but “politicking”. We need not hold him to specific proof because that is a matter for Raila to deal with. But I am keen to find out what Uhuru really thinks about the fate of those families that lost their loved ones, property and became destitute. I am keen to find out what he thinks about the people who were exterminated in Naivasha or burnt do death in Kiambaa church.
There is clearly no love lost between the two politicians, and each must be itching for a duel to settle old scores, but should that be at the expense of justice to innocent people who voted for either Kibaki or Raila?
Since 2002 when Raila ditched Uhuru, who went on to lose to Kibaki’s National Rainbow Coalition in which Raila was the matchmaker, he has always been broody. Through 2002-2007, Uhuru was thrust into the uncomfortable role of opposition leader in which he performed disastrously. But as fate would have it, he was forced by circumstances onto one side with Raila in opposing the 2005 draft constitution, through which Uhuru sat uneasily.
Although he swam with the crowd, his heart was always with President Mwai Kibaki. Soon as the referendum over, Uhuru switched camp back home. We now know from Wikileaks what Uhuru thought about Kibaki throughout his first term. But does anyone really know what Uhuru stands for or indeed what his leadership would look like?

 Makali is a journalist who comments on topical issues