The politics of double speak
Just three years after a global survey said Kenyans were the most optimistic people in the world, they are now among the most disillusioned. Reason: lies and double speak by their leaders - the very ones they fervently voted for under Narc in 2002.
An international Gallup poll by the BBC, titled Who Runs Your World, reflected this dramatic change. Kenya was among eight African countries surveyed. Citizens were asked whether their will prevailed, whether elections were free and fair and whether they trusted politicians more than religious leaders.
Over 60 per cent said their will never prevailed, and over 70 per cent said they trusted religious leaders more than they trusted politicians.
It is easy to see why. In the run-up to the last General Election, Narc promised a new Constitution in 100 days, 500,000 new jobs every year, a lean Cabinet - made up of not more than 20 ministers and an equal number of assistant ministers.
The Cabinet now comprises 29 ministers and 42 assistants - just part of a litany of broken promises.
Top leaders have also gone back on their word, especially now that campaigns for the Draft Constitution are in top gear.
Some examples:
Raila Odinga, Roads and Public Works Minister
Since his days in the Opposition, he has offered a string of inconsistencies on the constitution, premiership, operations at his ministry and registration of membership in political parties.
One of the most contentious issues in the ongoing arguments over the proposed Constitution is whether to have an executive president or a powerful prime minister. His No team is for the latter. Yet after his National Development Party merged with Kanu in 2002, which subsequently saw him become the Kanu spokesman, he advocated a ceremonial prime minister and an executive president.
He took an about-turn in the Bishop Sulumeti consensus committee, failing to vote with his Cabinet colleagues in support of proposals to have the President retain powers of the Executive.
In 1997, he said: "The constitutional reform process is too large to be left to Parliament. We want all Kenyan people - the civil society, church, professionals, political parties, the media and all other groups - to be involved."
Three years later, when he was the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution, he said Parliament "was the supreme body in approving the new Constitution" and that MPs represented the people, while religious leaders "represented their spiritual, not temporal, matters".
Also, while he headed the PSC, the then President Moi got powers to personally appoint 15 commissioners out of a list of 21 given to him by Parliament.
Odinga's falling-out with Narc over an un-heeded memorandum of understanding has led to many calls from various quarters for him to resign. In 2000, Raila dropped a motion he intended to raise in Parliament to contain political party "rebels" and force them to resign their parliamentary seats, after much criticism.
Odinga initially believed that calls for opposition unity were merely "shadow boxing", telling Kibaki in February 2002 to "stop dreaming about ever ruling Kenya". He was addressing a joint Kanu-NDP rally at Majengo, Nairobi. He said: "The economic mess we have in this country is because of his (Kibaki's) days as finance minister."
A few months later, the man he had described as a "coward and hypocrite" was "Kibaki Tosha!." "I have a lot of trust and confidence in President Kibaki," he said after conclusion of Bomas III talks.
Kiraitu Murungi, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister
His political portrait might have been etched at birth - 1952 - the year the colonial government declared a State of Emergency. As the Constitutional Affairs and Justice minister, Murungi is on the spot over the impending referendum for a new Constitution.
During pre-election campaigns in early 2002, "Waziri wa Ndizi" as he has now branded himself, campaigned for a strong Parliament, executive prime minister and reduced powers of the presidency. The proposed new Constitution calls for an executive presidency with powers to appoint a prime minister.
The Draft is way behind schedule. Murungi's promises shifted from 100 days to six months to two years, now. "My Government is sincere in ensuring a new Constitution is in place by June 2004," he said after conclusion of Bomas III in March.
"Get it from me as minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. I do not really see a new Constitution for this country by June 30," he said in early June that year.
His gender slur ("It's like raping a woman who is already too willing - made last February as an analogy to United States' move to withdraw financial assistance to Kenya due to endemic corruption) proved that he had also sank In the Mud of Politics, to borrow the title of his memoirs.
A few months earlier, Murungi had been pleading for funds from the Japanese Government, through Ambassador Satoru Miyamura.
On many occasions, he has failed to put his money where his mouth is, particularly on issues of corruption. In March 2005, he said the vice was not spreading. "What has increased is debate over corruption. There is freedom of the Press. Corruption has been politicised."
On the infamous Sh7 billion Anglo-leasing scandal, he said: "This has been blown out of proportion. It is the scandal that never was." A few months later, while opening a national anti-corruption campaign steering committee workshop in Naivasha, he said that "corruption was rife" and that the State was losing the war.
"Every day, there is talk of bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion, nepotism, vote-buying, abuse of power, conflict of interest, judicial corruption and misappropriation of public funds."
Only last week, Murungi took another twist, pouring scorn on Transparency International's report that showed prevalence of graft. "It does not reflect reality. As far as we are concerned, we are doing quite well."
In March 2003, at a meeting in his constituency, he said the Government had recovered Sh1 billion in the war against graft.
Last June, he said not a single cent had been recovered "because it is a very complicated process that calls for legal backing from countries where the money has been banked".
In his book, he cites cases of police involvement in his persecution. Many Kenyans would like to see him present this evidence to the Judiciary.
Murungi said the Goldenberg Commission of Inquiry report would be out by the end of this month as a "test case of how we will deal with the past". The country waits with bated breath.
Charity Ngilu, Health Minister
She was considered a formidable politician when she vied for the presidency in 1997 on a Social Democratic Party ticket. She promised a litany of goodies if elected, among them selling the controversial presidential jet, which costs the taxpayer millions of shillings in maintenance.
A fervent fighter for women and wananchi - even at times falling out with fellow Members of Parliament - Ngilu endeared herself to many people.
During her pre-election campaigns in 2002, she promised free health care for all. She also said that nobody would be detained in hospital for non-payment of bills upon her appointment as Health Minister. Her pet project, the National Social Health Insurance Scheme, came a cropper after failing to gain presidential assent. Experts dismissed it as unworkable.
She also promised massive increases in nurses' salaries, only to backtrack: "I don't think the Government will raise the pay for nurses in the public sector this year."
In December 2003, "Mama Rainbow" banned non-governmental organisations from conducting anti-Aids campaigns, saying these would be spearheaded by the National Aids Control Council. She described NGOs as "briefcase entities out to benefit from a helpless situation".
In February 2004, her ministry contracted Women Advocacy for Rural Development - an NGO - to mobilise women to attend a meeting on Aids at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani. Initially expected to last three days, it ended up being a one-day affair.
Earlier (February 2003), she accused the NACC of wasting funds through "fruitless workshops". The Kasarani workshop slapped a Sh30 million bill on the taxpayer.
Ngilu has also contradicted herself on the sensitive issue of abortion. "I personally feel the continued denial of women to make free choice on their reproductive health is wrong. The policy should be reformed to allow that freedom," she said two years ago during the launch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation Strategic Plan 2002-2005.
Following a barrage of criticism, she changed tune: "What I said is that reproductive health is a human rights issue and women should be enabled to access reproductive health services and be free to make reproductive health decisions which impact on their health, like spacing children, timing pregnancies and screening of cancers."
Ngilu was in the news recently for her reluctance to state her stand on the proposed Constitution. Though she finally swung to the Yes side, it is on record that last July, speaking at Bar Sauri, Siaya, in a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of Millennium Development Goals projects in the sub-location, she accused the Government of going against the wishes of Kenyans during the Constitution review process.
She said the majority of politicians supporting the Kilifi accord were at the forefront of campaigns for a new Constitution with less powers for the President when they were in Opposition.
"The behaviour of our leaders today, compared to some years ago, leaves a lot to be desired. The same people are now caring for their own gains, forgetting the wananchi who voted them in."
In June this year, when asked whether she had been adequately rewarded at Narc (for the role her party - National Party of Kenya - played in the last election victory), she said: "All the work I did was in vain. Nobody remembers what I did and the sacrifices I made."
Though she once announced her ambitions for the prime minister's post, her low points in the Government - including the NSHIF Bill that saw her fly 52 MPs to the Coast and "protecting" one-time Health Permanent Secretary Julius Meme on allegations of corruption (Meme later resigned), have eclipsed her good efforts.
Soon after she announced her stand as a Yes supporter, relief food was sent to Ukambani, her home turf. Her words in a 1997 dinner party hosted in her honour by the Kenya National Congress: "All one needs today is to be a sycophant to a well-connected individual and you will have a smooth life. This should not be allowed to continue."
Anyang Nyong'o, Planning Minister
As MP for Kisumu Rural, first on a Ford Kenya ticket in 1992, then on SDP in 1997 (nominated) and on Narc in 2002, he made a name with a weekly newspaper column he used to write on good governance, transitional politics and the economy.
Nyong'o used to advocate a fiscal policy that would reduce government expenditure. In 2000, he wrote an article in the Sunday Nation critical of MPs raising their salaries.
"By increasing their wages, parliamentarians are gravitating more towards the power elite and away from the average wage earners with whom they should have a common struggle to liberate the society from gross injustices and inequalities," he wrote. When Narc came to power, he didn't object to the new salary increment.
He once wrote that "nothing short of a revolution in the way we view our lives and the way our society is run "will redeem us from perennial penury. In a report from the Office of the President released to Parliament in August, last year, Nyong'o led his Cabinet colleagues on the most money spent on foreign trips - Sh6.5m on a total of 27 trips. His Environment counterpart, Kalonzo Musyoka, spent only Sh2.4m on the same number of trips.
Recently, Nyong'o was criticised over plans by his ministry to conduct a Sh636 million poverty survey in Kenya. He also backs the proposed Sh100 million presidential house project, arguing that "asking the President to work and live at State House is like telling me to live at the top of the Treasury Building and work on the 10th floor."
Amos Kimunya, Lands Minister
A professional accountant and former anti-graft crusader, the Kipipiri MP has had his fair share of inconsistencies. His handling of the sensitive Lands docket has been driven more by political expediency than policy. In early August, 2,000 families were forcibly evicted from Mau Forest, Narok, in what he described as an effort to save Kenya's shrinking forest cover. He also vowed to nullify all title deeds issued on this "Government land". Only recently, Kimunya called on those with title deeds to return.
Though Narc in its election campaign pledged to create a National Housing Development Fund to help ordinary Kenyans, Kimunya now believes the promise was "to create an enabling environment for the construction of 150,000 units annually, not actually building them".
In January this year, he went against the grain, announcing that he had cancelled all illegally acquired title deeds. "I want to put all those who may have been allocated such land on the alert. They should consider their titles cancelled." Three months later, truth caught up with him when the court ruled that he had no authority to cancel title deeds.
During the 36th annual Institute of Surveyors Kenya dinner in Nairobi last April, he said: "We have stopped sub-division of sizes below two-and-a-half acres until the national land use policy is in place." His announcement was formalised through a gazette notice on June 2.
A few weeks later, Kimunya retracted. "To avoid further misinformation on the spirit of the criteria, we have decided to rescind Gazette Notice 64 with immediate effect."
Kipipiri is part of the White Highlands. Kenyans were settled there after independence when the Government forcibly took over colonial farms.
Ironically, Kimunya has been compelled to use the provincial administration to scuttle efforts by the Maasai to take over ranches owned by remnants of the colonial regime.
Mirugi Kariuki, Assistant Minister
A few years ago, you would hardly link him with some of the statements targeting rival politicians lately.
He is an award-winning defender of human rights (he received the International Commission of Jurists award for human rights in 1996, advised the Cayman Island state on the proposed Bill of Rights, 2001, and is a founder of the Human Rights Institute).
Recently, the Nakuru Town MP and assistant minister in-charge of provincial administration was on the receiving end for telling Environment Minister Kalonzo Musyoka: "If we want his jail term to start immediately, it can." He was referring to a contempt of court case against Mr Musyoka, which has yet to be quashed by the Court of Appeal.
In 1986, Kariuki was detained for three years for alleged association with the underground Mwakenya movement. A year after his release, he was in court again on treason charges and was released three years later. His detractors argue that the Musyoka threat could be taken to mean the Judiciary is still prone to manipulation by the Executive.
Kariuki has also been in trouble for allegedly threatening Electoral Commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu with the sack if he withdrew from overseeing the referendum.
Joseph John Kamotho, Mathioya MP
If Kenyan politicians were to be rewarded for dexterity, Kamotho would strike gold. In his Kanu days, he believed that the party would rule "for 100 years". Enter the NDP-Kanu alliance in early 2002 that saw him lose his secretary-general seat to NDP leader Raila Odinga. It marked the beginning of the end of his days in the party he once described as "Mama na Baba", "the only tree in the forest" and the "only national political party".
He subsequently left the party, joined Narc and won the Mathioya parliamentary seat. "No cockerel should be alive in Mathioya constituency after Christmas Day," he said, referring to the imminent defeat of Kanu whose symbol is a cockerel.
As Education minister in 1996, Kamotho said there was no need to change the current Constitution "as ordinary Kenyan had nothing against it". A political science graduate from Syracuse University, US, and a masters degree holder in development administration from Birmingham University, he cannot be brushed off as just another loud mouth.
In 1980, he was pushed into obscurity during a season that saw former attorney-general Charles Njonjo's associates suspended from Kanu. He returned in 1986 when the Kanu governing council, chaired by President Moi, pardoned him and 17 others.
This former headmaster of Kangema High School, who in his days as Trade minister described Mwai Kibaki as a "paper tiger" and the DP leadership as "a bull that is incapable of siring anything", seems to have found his niche in LDP as he edges towards his sunset years in Kenyan politics.
