Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga. PHOTO / FILE
By RAILA ODINGA
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 18:54
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 18:54
When the majority of Kenyans in 2010 voted to replace our old Constitution with a new one, they voted for change for the better.
They believed a bright future lay ahead. A minority voted against the new Constitution – many of them possibly without the benefit of having read it.
They voted against it because certain leaders told them to do so, having first frightened them with falsehoods concerning the new Constitution’s “evil intent”.
These leaders had reasons of their own to be afraid of any clean-up of national life, and they made it their mission to poison the minds of the people. They invented contemptible lies and spread them countrywide.
When the “No” secretariat was opened during the constitutional referendum campaigns, its leaders threatened bloodshed, evictions and religious warfare if the new Constitution was passed. “It will take us to slavery,” said one.
Abortion wards would be opened in all hospitals, they said. Yet abortion was not permitted under the new Constitution.
There would be same-sex marriages, said the promulgators of these lies. Yet the draft Constitution guaranteed the right to marry only a person of the opposite gender. Land smallholdings would be nationalised, continued the scaremongers.
The new Constitution said no such thing, and also guaranteed that communal land would come under the jurisdiction of county governments, not national government.
In spreading such falsehoods, the aim of the “No” group was not Constitution-making. It was incitement, and nearly 4,000 people had to be deployed countrywide to rein in the hate-mongers.
It did not matter to the “No” group that the document embodied the stated wishes of the people of Kenya, and was drafted only after one of the widest consultative processes ever devoted to the making of a national Constitution.
Nor, contrary to current claims, was there ever any agreement between the “Yes” and “No” groups that the draft Constitution was flawed, and the only difference was that the “Yes” group wanted to change it after its passage, while the “No” group wanted to change it before. That is an attempt to rewrite history.
We in the “Yes” group never believed the Constitution was flawed. We believed it reflected what Kenyans had asked for.
We never planned to amend it – even if no Constitution is perfect, and ours, like any other, might require finessing over time.
The fundamental point of departure between us and the “No” group was that we believed in the draft new Constitution, and they did not.
And our history shows the dangers inherent in putting people into positions where they can mastermind constitutional change.
Kenya achieved independence under a Kadu-favoured Majimbo Constitution, which sought to benefit all the country’s regions.
Kanu leaders, who did not believe in that Constitution, nonetheless cunningly agreed to it, knowing they would change it to suit themselves once they were in charge.
And that is what happened. Over the years, Kanu introduced one amendment after another, isolating the regions, removing freedoms, centralising and consolidating executive power and condemning the nation to fear and repression.
It was very damaging and very sad. And that is why I say we must never again allow people who do not believe in something to be in charge of its implementation. The last thing we want is a repeat of history.
For nothing has changed. The “Nos” still don’t believe in the new Constitution, as parliamentary experience demonstrates only too clearly.
Since the “Nos” were unable to stop the Constitution’s promulgation, they now look for ways of preventing its full implementation.
How better to do that than to ensure that they are the ones in charge?
So it is our turn to say “No”. We say that those leaders cannot be entrusted with fulfilling the promise of our new Constitution – because they don’t believe in it.
This has nothing to do with the democratic right to vote “Yes” or “No”. Every Kenyan, however they voted, retains the same rights.
But we need to look at the motivation that lay behind the “No” campaign.
That motivation still exists, and people who have personal reasons for not supporting the new Constitution cannot be relied upon to implement it.
As a nation, we have struggled very hard to reach this point, and we need to understand the danger of losing the gains we have made.
We must not allow ourselves to be treated as idiots, fed with endless lies. We must reject the phony and cynical propaganda generated by people who are desperate.
Those of us committed to positive change must stand together to ensure that our country’s best interest is realised, that our new Constitution is fully implemented, and that a false and ingratiating “nationalism” that is a travesty of the name is consigned to oblivion, where it belongs.
Raila Odinga is the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya
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