It is often said
that nature has a reason for each and every thing that crosses your line in
life- be it good or bad. History has recorded scenarios in which those that
suffered trauma and humiliation, public ridicule and vilification overcame all
the roadblocks and were the very ones asking the who-is-laughing-now question
at the end of it all. From the anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela to the ward
representative for Lodwar Township, no other experience in recent history
clearly indicates the operation of this law of nature more than the story of
Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto and how the two Jubilee supremos miraculously
and by operation of the magical abracadabra overcame all atrocities, waded
through oceans, were knocked down and rose up and finally won the championship
for the house on the hill “in ninety minutes”.
Barely two weeks
to the March 4th General Election, discussions in Kenya and around
the globe were focused on whether or not the two jubilee suspects should
contest the presidency while having their cases still pending before the
Hague-based International Criminal Court. Kenyans were told a lot of horror and
Cinderella stories by the West. They were reminded to put at the back of their
minds the fact that Kenya cannot operate as an island in the competitive 21st
century. They were cautioned to tread with circumspection while exercising
their allegedly democratic right the only reason being “Choices have
Consequences”-a political anthem that almost replaced the Kenyan national
anthem. Kenyans were left to choose between the hard choice of voting to accept
the said consequences and move on OR voting in the pattern indirectly dictated
by the managers of neo-colonialism. Yet we all forgot not even in the jungle is
there wisdom in extinguishing the lives of over forty million Kenyans through
sanctions as a way of punishing two young men who decided to join the race to
the beautiful house. It is unprecedented and is not recorded anywhere in the
chronicles of history.
Kenyans must
forgive me for asking these questions:
If democracy is not about letting the
people themselves choose (without any influence or direction) the leaders whom
they trust to determine their destiny, what else can it be?
If sovereignty is not about letting a
country manage its own affairs including electing its own Chief Executive
Officers-whom unfortunately you must recognize and work with, how else can it
be defined?
If the innocence until proven guilty
concept is still upheld in the English criminal justice system, must we
nickname our jubilee ‘suspects’
‘criminals’ at such pre-trial stages of the Ocampo-Story? My conscience gives it a big NO.
In what was
classified by political scientists and experts in the field of academia as a
referendum against the Ocampo-Story, Kenyans stunned the world on March 4th
when they voted in the words of William Ruto ‘to the last man’. What many
Kenyans do not appreciate is the bitter fact that the then jubilee suspects
were more organized and articulate in their nationwide campaigns in contradistinction
with their friends in the Cord Alliance. They played the ICC card well and
convinced their voting blocks that the ‘king of the rift’ and the ‘king of
central Kenya’ were in a white man’s land, tried for crimes against humanity
charges because of the presidential aspirations of the ‘king of Luo
speaking-Nyanza’. They played the Land- Question too which was a penalty shot
for Raila Odinga so well and scored against the Cord Alliance, thanks to an own
goal by its head captain in a friendly match played for three hours in the
auditorium of Brookhouse International Schools. They satisfied the then
confused Kenyans through holding into the position that the land issue in Kenya
can only be solved by a president who owns a lot of land and therefore needs none
to grab. The son of Jomo was on the score line again.
In my widest
imagination and having checked the jubilee manifesto, I suspect that the
Jubilee suspects will turn around the economy of the Republic of Kenya in a
manner the people of the world will not believe. The two youthful leaders and
their well-crafted cabinet have the requisite synergy and skills to help this
great country realize Vision 2030 in 2020. Let’s hope as the Kenyan electorate
that our queuing in long queues won’t be in vain; let’s hope that we shall all
be the recipients of the concomitant benefits of a developed Kenya.
So far, UhuRuto
have demonstrated that the jubilee storm is sweeping across the continent of
Africa and the two now have influence and recognition beyond the borders. They
have rallied the entire African continent behind them and with the judges and
witnesses withdrawing from the case citing prosecutorial incompetency, the two
are smiling all the way back from The Hague.
And a curious
mind would always ask what brought UhuRuto to command the following of almost
the whole continent were it not for the ICC. An inquisitive one would also
strive to know whether were it not for the ICC these two gentlemen would be occupying
state house. And a projection to the future clearly shows the two winning their
ICC cases and then becoming heroes across the planet Earth and any other
country out there- from China to Japan will be courting them. Do you know why?
ICC.
Ekai
Nabenyo is a Law Student at the University of Nairobi and blogs at
Informing
Kenyans-www.ekainabenyo.blogspot.com
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