Former President Mwai Kibaki (left) with University of Nairobi
Vice-Chancellor George Magoha at the University's main campus on
December 2, 2013 after he gave a lecture as part of the activities ahead
of the Kenya at 50 celebrations which will take place on December 12.
PHOTO | EVANS HABIL
NATION MEDIA GROUP
Former President Mwai Kibaki has
indirectly blamed his predecessor Daniel Moi for slowing down the
country’s growth even as its peers prospered.
In his
first public lecture since he left power in April this year, Mr Kibaki
who spoke on Kenya’s journey since independence described the first
decade of the Moi regime as a “period of backsliding”.
“In
terms of state organisation, there was an outstanding difference
between the period spanning 1966 to 1982 and the one that followed 10
years after till 1991. It was the fact that the leadership feared that
organised political opinion that went contrary to the ideology of the
government of the day posed a threat to the interests of the state,” he
said.
Mr Moi replaced Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1978 after
the latter had led the country since independence in 1963. But Kenya’s
third President argued the gains Mzee Kenyatta had brought on board were
eroded during the Moi era.
“The descent into a period
of backsliding and stagnation that followed this terrific start lasted
almost one complete human generation. Well, at times every country
experiences down moments characterised by diminished fortunes. And Kenya
had its own share of time of wandering in the wild.
“Those
were, effectively, Kenya’s years in the wilderness, the years during
which Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea left countries like Kenya far
behind and yet, on the starting line, we had begun virtually
shoulder-to-shoulder with respect to development and potential.”
50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE
The
former president spoke to a gathering of about 2,000 students,
lecturers, government officials and members of the public at the
University of Nairobi's Taifa Hall. The talk was titled “Kenya @50: Of
hindsight, Insight and Foresight, Reflections on the State of the
Nation,” which he argued was meant to “solemnly take stock of the road
travelled at that particular point in time.”
Mr
Kibaki’s 15-page speech drove through Kenya’s history from independence
to date, lasting one hour and 16 minutes. After his talk, the audience
asked 12 questions; he answered one and ignored the rest.
“You
should consider what you should do now, what is there that you should
do; because that is the only reason which can make sense. What you
should have done, you should have done that time and because you did not
do it at that time, why are you thinking backwards?” he replied when an
Economics student asked if there is anything he did as a young man that
the youth can learn from.
“No. No, for the reason that
it is a wrong manner of thinking that after you have been through your
life, you want to think what you should have done. It is wrong logic; it
is a wrong sense of considering who you are.”
His
lecture had elaborated on how the colonialists imposed Majimboism on
Kenya, how they used foreign aid to ensure Kenya remains dependent on
them and how it fell because it went against Kenya’s quest for national
unity.
The former president delivered an analysis of
Mzee Kenyatta’s struggle to piece the country together in fighting
illiteracy, disease and poverty especially since the colonialists left
little resources behind. He talked of Kenyatta’s three-point strategies
on the ‘Africanisation programme’: Commercial agriculture, Transfer of
business to Africans and industrial and financial access to Africans.
These, he argued were weakened from 1982, Moi’s era.
But
there was a flowing irony in all these: Mr Kibaki was an MP from 1963
to 2013, Finance and Health Minister as well as Vice President in the
Moi regime until he parted ways with the second president at the start
of multiparty democracy.
Yet he argued that only
multiparty democracy brought back the hope that Kenyans wanted to chase
their dreams most of which he said were achieved during his time as
president.
“The hard-boiled reaction by the
establishment against what was viewed as dissidence led to the clamour
for multi-partyism. That was attained in 1991.
“And
that is how several other political parties joined KANU in the search
for a share of political power. It also opened up opportunities to give
the country's leadership a new vision. Besides, the expanded political
space gave the country hope for a new constitution. That long awaited
dream bore fruit once the promulgation of the new Constitution took
place in 2010.”
Other success stories, he added,
include free primary education, revival of the cooperative movement,
opening of more schools and tertiary institutions, annual economic
growth of 7 per cent as well as an improved road network in the country.
His
administration though, was blotted with the 2008 post-election violence
in which 1,113 died and 650,000 others were displaced. Kibaki thinks
the violence brought the country “on the brink of an artificial
apocalypse” and was solved only because of Kenyans’ nature to work
together despite different political ideologies.
He
however had a warm assessment of Uhuru Kenyatta’s government. The former
President thought the Jubilee administration had been above average in
its first seven months in power.
“So far, the
leadership of this country has done what has been within its ability and
reach, with regard to getting Kenyans to the promised land. However, a
lot still remains undone,” he said.
“I have no doubt whatsoever that from now on; we shall have the government and the people who make success.”
President
Kenyatta’s government replaced Kibaki’s decade long presidency. And
although the President and his deputy are facing trials at the
International Criminal Court (ICC), Mr Kibaki said all Kenyans must
rally behind the government if we must get any meaningful development.
“My
hope is that each of us in this country will play their part fully and
faithfully especially in the area of creating both jobs and wealth, be
it with and from our natural or imported resources,” he said.
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