Stranded patients sit outside the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Hospital blocks
after they were allegedly ordered out of the wards. The workers that
included the doctors downed their tools forcing patients to seek for
alternative means on December 12, 2013. Photo/TOM OTIENO
Alphonse Otieno was a disappointed man
outside the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga referral hospital in Kisumu while
President Uhuru Kenyatta was presiding over celebrations to mark 50
years of independence in Nairobi.
Armed with a coffin,
Mr Otieno travelled from Homa Bay County to collect the body of his
brother for burial only to find the morgue closed. Health workers were
on strike to protest against devolution of health services.
“We
will pay for the hearse despite having not taken the body of my
brother,” he said. “The government is prioritising wrong things instead
of addressing problems facing its citizens. What independence are we
celebrating after 50 years?” he posed outside the hospital.
That
was the irony of last week’s fete. While the country’s leaders led the
celebrations, thousands of patients could not access medical services
due to the strike by health workers.
During the
celebrations, President Kenyatta said that at independence, founding
president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta identified three enemies that the country
was to fight: poverty, ignorance, and disease. He indicated that over
the past 50 years, Kenya has made great strides in overcoming these
challenges.
He said 50 years ago, healthcare was inaccessible to most people but “today, the situation is remarkably different”.
Not
only do we have thousands of health workers, but also services are much
closer to the people as health facilities are now spread across all
parts of the country,” said the President.
Mr Otieno, Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba and former assistant minister Koigi wa Wamwere disagree.
According
to Mr Wamwere, though Kenya has made significant gains in the health,
business and infrastructure, the 50-year journey has been not been rosy.
However,
there is consensus that Kenya has recorded key gains in its growth
process especially in expansion of infrastructure, education, training
of highly qualified professionals, thriving service sector and enactment
of one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world .
According
to Mr Wamwere Kenya has experienced its fair share of self-inflicted
challenges which should not be swept under the carpet. Mr Wamwere cited
corruption, assassination of politicians such as Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki
and Robert Ouko, negative ethnicity, corruption scandals, extra-judicial
killings, exclusion detention without trial, dictatorship, suppression
of the media and the post-election violence.
Mr Wamwere
is amongst leaders detained without trial while fighting the Kanu
dictatorship. Others include Ramogi Achieng’ Oneko, Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Wanyiri Kihoro, Martin Shikuku, Raila Odinga,
Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia and George Anyona.
“We
got back our country from the colonial dictatorship and freed ourselves
from apartheid, but we never got our freedom. We got independence
without democracy,” said Mr Wamwere.
According to the
former MP, Mzee Kenyatta and other heroes liberated Kenya from Egypt,
led them through the Red Sea, but they never reached the Promised Land.
“The
journey stalled in the desert. We now need a Joshua to deliver us to
the Promised Land. That Joshua must be allowed to come from a big or
small tribe, a rich or poor family,” said Mr Wamwere.
The
former detainee, is particularly concerned that Kenyans did not seem to
reflect on the fact that their President is only sitting head of state
ever charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal
Court together with is deputy.
“Our leaders are in
The Hague because of negative ethnicity. Kenyans must reflect and
confront the reality we are celebrating 50 years of independence at a
time our leaders are facing prosecution at the ICC,” he says.
According
Mr Wamwere, the prosecution of Mr Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto
is a pointer to tribal anxieties that continue to shape Kenya’s politics
since independence.
“We must ask ourselves how we got
to The Hague. Without doing so, we will be behaving like the proverbial
ostrich which buried its head in the sand,” says Wamwere.
The former MP attributes Kenya’s challenges to the a failure of leadership, capitalism and negative ethnicity.
He
says the capitalist system entrenched poverty for the wider population
while giving the ruling elite opportunity to amass wealth for
themselves protected by poor systems of accountability, a view shared
by Mr Namwamba.
Even as he acknowledges that Kenyans should count their blessings, he says the country should have done better.
“It could have been worse. Look at countries such as Somalia and Uganda,” he says.
Mr
Namwamba reckons that the country got it wrong on ethnic intergration,
corruption and the fight against impunity. There is also the argument
that successive regimes have favoured the ethnic communities of the
ruling elite to the exclusion of others.
It is also
noteworthy that the national political narrative continues to revolve
around the ideological differences between the Kenyatta and Odinga
families whose heads teamed up to lay the foundation of the Kenyan state
but parted ways.
According to the MP, the biggest
challenge with Kenya is that it always squanders opportunities to
reconfigure itself and correct past mistakes.
“We have had countless opportunities but we always throw them away,” he argues.
He
says that founding President Jomo Kenyatta failed to forge together a
united nation which provides equal opportunities for all its citizens.
“At
independence Kenyatta was surrounded with a constellation of the
county. He had people like Jaramogi, Paul Ngei, Daniel Moi, Ronald Ngala
and Tom Mboya. But instead of forging a strong nation, he planted seeds
of ethnicity,” says Namwamba.
He adds that President
Moi continued with Mzee Kenyatta’s ills instead of correcting them, with
tribalism, massive corruption and repression taking root.
Mr
Namwamba argues that in 2002 President Kibaki was given the chance to
rewrite Kenya’s history but he re-invented tribalism. The Budalang’i MP
also believes that so far President Kenyatta has not proved he intends
to fight problems such as ethnicity.
“One our biggest
problems is that we compare ourselves with failed countries such as
Uganda and Somalia and then we say were are doing better. We should ask
ourselves why have countries such as Brazil and Singapore left us
behind,” he says.
Quoting respected theologian Hellen G White, Mr Namwamba says Kenya lacks courageous men committed to the truth.
“The
greatest want of the world is the want of men-men who will not be
bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men
who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is
as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the
right though the heavens fall.”
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