President William Ruto chairs a past Cabinet meeting at State House, Nairobi.
| File I Nation Media groupOur Columnists
Premium
Leave criticism of the state to us
There is something shallow about this government; a sense that policy decisions are not taken through the intellectual kitchen where they are thoroughly examined, weighed, tested, modified, polished, retested until they are spanking clean with all implications, consequences, unintended consequences taken into account before being trotted out for public consumption.
This week, lawyer and X blogger Ahmednassir Abdullahi landed Roads Cabinet Secretary Onesmus Kipchumba Murkomen on his face with a German supplex after the CS appeared in Upper Hill to sweat NTSA clerks one bright, autumn morning. I suppose the Hon Most Respected CS had observed the encomiums we heaped on his Interior colleague for working the queue and meeting Immigration management early mornings to unstick passports and decided to get in on the publicity. Prof Kindiki deserved the accolades. Mr Murkomen? Hardly.
Mr Abdullahi was right; CSs have no business sweating clerks for publicity. It’s a sign of gross incompetence and a failure to comprehend the gravitas and purpose of that most crucial of jobs. In all fairness, Mr Onesmus is one of the smarter guys in the Cabinet, but he appears to devote a considerable proportion of his talent and youthful energy to stunts. His boss should consider punching him full in the face to knock him out cold in the hope that, when he comes to, his brain will have rebooted with the correct defaults.
I’m angry. Outraged. Furious even. I have asked my wife to run to my hut and bring me my panga. Not the one for weeding beans; the ones for cutting people. A Kaunda suit does not a pan-Africanist make. That much I’ll agree with the Ugandan or Kenyan masquerader or North Korean secret agent or whatever Larmbert Ebitu, who has been taking the shine off President William Ruto’s freshly minted pan-African credentials.
I find many of his arguments against the President, while very well written, as shallow as an Itumbi branding proposal, an exercise in fakery; his characterisation of a Kenyan President is particularly offensive. I expect Kenyans to viciously criticise the President—not foreigners who did not elect him, don’t pay his salary or suffer under his policies.
First, he criticises Nigeria and Kenya as states “propped up by Europeans” and “held hostage” to serve foreign interests. Bro, there are countries in Africa whose budgets are three-quarters aid-funded and armies, more like the Presidents’ private militia, on hire to the highest bidder—bodyguards for dictators and mass murderers, cannon fodder for the CIA and European tin-pot powers. Kenya and Nigeria aren’t among them.
He speaks of President Ruto and Tinubu has having dubious pasts. I think Tinubu was linked to coke dealing a long time ago and President Ruto was charged—but not convicted—of crimes against humanity at the ICC. These, even if they were true, and while very serious offences, rank lowly compared to the endemic mass rapes and mass killings in the Congo, Sudan's Darfur, Central African Republic and such other places. Angels are few and far between in African politics, sadly.
He calls Dr Ruto “the biggest political swindle of Africa’s recent history”. No, totally disagree. Abiy Ahmed Ali, who is not even a Muslim, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but soon ended up wiping out a considerable proportion of Tigray’s population. How is he better than a guy who has just worn a couple of (oft-ill-fitting) suits and mouthed off at conferences?
Mr Ebitu basically characterises our President as the new Mobutu because he wears African garb but is purportedly guilty of “traitorous imposture” because he called for the ditching the dollar one day and on the next was negotiating deals with the IMF and World Bank. Well, I strongly oppose Kenya’s recent tight embrace of the Bretton Woods institutions. I believe they are not here to help. But they have relatively affordable loans. Let any African country that has not kissed the bottom of the Bretton Woods cast the first stone.
He takes the President by the collar for calling on Africa to break free from Western hegemony but a few days later demanding reinstatement of the French puppet in Niger overthrown by his disgusted military. Well, on this one, he should grab the President neck’s and squeeze even tighter. His defence of the horrible Mohamed Bazoum is indefensible.
President Ruto, whines Mr Ebitu, demanded respect for African leaders only to “cozy up” to Vlodomir Zelensky, who had dismissed an African peace mission as “a waste of time”. Well, honestly, wasn’t it?
Lastly, he takes umbrage at the Kenyan leader's glowing speeches about the African Continental Free Trade Area while also negotiating and finally signing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union to clear the way for preferential trade terms for some Kenyan goods in the European market.
Well, AfCFTA is the way to the future, no question about it, and we should support it wholly. Preferential access to the European market, which all of East Africa except Kenya already has because they are categorised differently, is a present need. I’d imagine that, as a practical matter, and having responsibility over a comatose economy, it makes sense to maintain access to that market and work for the continental mechanism simultaneously.
If you don’t shut up about our President, Mr Ebitu, we’ll start writing about yours.
