From Where I Sit…Retrieved from my online archives... On the 5th of December 2013, in reference to the ICC case against H.E the President, I wrote this article hereunder. Today, one year later, I stand vindicated... “The eyes of Kenya have closed.” These words were spoken by the then Coast Provincial Commissioner Mr. Eliud Mahihu to Sir Charles Njonjo, the Attorney General. He was reporting that Jomo Kenyatta, the Founding President of our nation had gone to rest with his ancestors. A few years earlier, the AG had made it treasonable to imagine the death of Mzee and declared in parliament, and I quote, “Our most cherished institution is the Presidency and our most beloved citizen is the holder of that office’’. The reality that ‘The institution of the Presidency’ is the most important symbol of our nationhood was ever-present in Mzee’s life. He never vacillated nor faltered in showing to the world that the well-being and pride of our country was best manifested by the well-being and pride of our Citizen Number One. As President, he refused to display his physical weaknesses, even when the situation was dire and life-threatening. For instance when his sight was failing due to old age, he refused to wear glasses in public, opting instead to have his speeches done in large font size. Most notably when doctors declared that he would not last for 6 months without a heart pace-setter, he couldn’t allow them to open his, nay our chest, Kenya’s chest in the person of Jomo our President! To that extent, The Presidency was Kenya as much as Kenya was the Presidency. This brings me to the questions whether Jomo’s son Uhuru Kenyatta who presently occupies that institution as Our Fourth President should be tried by the ICC, whether at The Hague or in absentia through his legal counsel, and two, whether Uhuru can continue insisting that the matter of his trial at The Hague is a personal challenge. I have listened and considered very intensely the views being advanced by two schools of thought, those in support of The Hague process and those opposed to it. I have also imagined watching my President, the most important citizen of my country idling with humiliation, dishonor and shame in a foreign court, wasting my country’s most valuable time, listening to the mambo-jumbo of an obese Gambian woman and some distorted voices of faceless witnesses. It makes me sick to the stomach. This ‘Fatty’ Bensouda in my considered submission has been held by the balls by her Western paymasters. Back to my two questions and I submit that my President, thus the Institution of the Presidency and hence my Country will not, cannot and shall never be tried in ANY COURT; kangaroo, traditional, local or foreign so long as he occupies this symbolic office. This, any right-thinking Kenyan will jealously defend to the last man/woman standing. In defense of my country, the distinction between sycophancy, patriotism and nationhood ceases to exist. To those who argue that Kenya risk isolation from the rest of the world, I would rather be a citizen of an isolated but dignified country than an included but humiliated one. Cuba has been isolated for the last 60 years and they only grow sugarcane. Only a fool would want to isolate a mineral-rich, Geo-politically and economically strategic country like ours. Secondly, were it within my power, the Commander-in-Chief ought to be whipped (in private) six ‘nyahunyus’ by general Karangi for trying to personalize a national issue. The ICC issue is no more a personal challenge to the President than it is to my four-year-old ‘acting last born’ daughter who ‘voted’ for Uhuru, (never mind her age) and continuously votes for him whenever his name pops on TV. Uhuru Kenyatta is no longer a private person as long as he represents Kenya in the community of nations. Upon assuming the office of the president, we all shared in his personal challenges. His health, what he eats, who he hangs out with, what time he wakes up, what foreign countries think of him is our inalienable concern, each one of us with an equal stake. His humiliation amounts to our humiliation and that of our country’s sovereignty. This we should resist to our last breath. And this applies as a matter of principle to any other Kenyan should they assume the revered Office of the President, be it Raila Odinga, Abduba Dida or God forbid, Johnstone Muthama. I would fight for them with the same gusto.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 09:51:41 +0000
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