Our freedoms are being eroded daily

Deputy President William Ruto, President Uhuru Kenyatta and first lady Margaret Kenyatta at Afraha Stadium, Nakuru during a prayer rally following the collapse of Deputy President's case at the International Criminal Court on April 16, 2016. Kenyans may well get reconciled, but it will be in spite of politicians rather than because of them. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • There was a certain predictability about the outcome of the Afraha thanksgiving event.
  • The slogans of ‘never again,’ ‘we are one’ and ‘we will reconcile Kenyans’ just fall off political tongues so easily that they represent cynicism rather than a new beginning.
  • Kenyans may well get reconciled, but it will be in spite of politicians rather than because of them.
  • Pledges to forgive individuals and organisations that the Ocampo 6 consider responsible for their trials at the ICC should also be treated sceptically.

There was a certain predictability about the outcome of the Afraha thanksgiving event.

The slogans of ‘never again,’ ‘we are one’ and ‘we will reconcile Kenyans’ just fall off political tongues so easily that they represent cynicism rather than a new beginning.

Kenyans may well get reconciled, but it will be in spite of politicians rather than because of them.

Pledges to forgive individuals and organisations that the Ocampo 6 consider responsible for their trials at the ICC should also be treated sceptically.

This suspicion was confirmed after disclosure of the confrontation between former Police Commissioner Maj Gen (rdt) Hussein Ali and KHRC executive director George Kegoro in a Naivasha restaurant hours before the Afraha affair.

Mr Kegoro was joint secretary to the Waki Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence and Mr Ali’s rage spilled out in public.

The executive appointment of Mr Ali as chairman of the NGO Co-ordination Board must have sent warning signals to civil society that many organisations may spend the pre-election period in court.

EXERT REVENGE

The Ocampo Six seem determined to take revenge on their accusers. We are likely to witness a more aggressive, vindictive and intolerant government rather than a more inclusive, conciliatory one.

The force used to disperse the Cord protest at Anniversary Towers the other day is a further signal that freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution are being eroded daily.

Article 37 states emphatically that ‘Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities’.

But the police were only too willing to release the teargas. Yet, a variety of government mouthpieces kept telling us about the limitations of rights in a manner reminiscent of the Moi regime when the Constitution was cynically referred to as the ‘book of exceptions’.

The Executive justify excessive force, illegal detentions, enforced disappearances, stifling freedom of expression and profiling of communities all in the name of keeping the peace and securing the nation.

AUTHORITARIAN

This is bizarre. Kenya is becoming a more authoritarian and unaccountable state while the Constitution promised freedom and respect for the rule of law.

I guess old habits die hard as Jubilee is really Kanu in blue jeans.

Beyond the casual, relaxed style of leadership, nothing has changed. Ethnic delegations are still bussed to State House and jobs and allowances dished out to secure the vote.

Devolution may have temporarily halted the ‘bring and buy’ politics but Jubilee has recently discovered new ways of frustrating devolution’s progression.

Yet, this generation will not surrender the hard fought freedoms.

You may call them prostitutes, speak of foreign masters and maybe eliminate some of them, but there is no going back.

Ultimately, the people will have their way. IEBC Commissioners will exit and one day PEV will know the truth about their tormentors.

There is no regression and any delay in accessing freedom is just digging this regime’s own grave.

[email protected] @GabrielDolan1