On a chilly Monday morning on June 1,
1963, Jomo Kenyatta was driven to Nairobi’s Ministry of Works offices –
now Harambee House where his inauguration as prime minister was to take
place.
The scene on Coronation Avenue (present-day
Harambee Avenue) was ecstatic as Kenyans in the 30,000 strong crowd
craned their necks to catch a glimpse of their new leader as the country
attained self-governing status.
With Kenyatta was
Kenya’s last governor, Malcolm MacDonald, wearing a plumed hat and the
green colonial-office regalia. Kenyatta wore his beaded beanie cap, the
trademark leather jacket and clasped a silver-headed fly whisk.
The
man the British government had regarded as a “terrorist” and described
as “the leader unto darkness and death” was now minutes away from
receiving the mantle from his tormentors.
Even as he
lifted the Bible and swore allegiance to the Queen, Kenyatta knew he was
inheriting a politically divided nation of which economists had painted
a gloomy picture. The political fear was about the domination of
national politics by the Kikuyu and the Luo, who had successfully
united under Kanu, while the other smaller tribes had coalesced around
Kadu.
Some 51 years later, Kenyatta’s son, President
Uhuru Kenyatta, finds himself in almost similar circumstances. He leads
the country in marking Madaraka Day today when Kenya faces challenges to
national unity, security, land and the economy.
SOMALI QUESTION
The
first major issue his father inherited was the Somali Question. In
1964, the entire of North Eastern Region boycotted elections after
residents were violently dissuaded not to participate by secessionists.
Nobody
was elected to the nine seats in the region. Even as Kenyatta became
prime minister, North Eastern remained a colony of the British
government as the rest of Kenya prepared for independence. All the
region’s 34 chiefs had resigned en masse protesting their inclusion in
Kenya.
While Kenyatta faced threats from the
Somalia-backed Shifta who waged a war of terror on the administration
and residents in the region, President Uhuru Kenyatta today faces
threats from Somalia-based, Al-Qaeda-backed Al-Shabaab terrorists, angry
about Kenya’s military intervention in their country and what they
consider Kenya’s dalliance with countries interfering in the Horn of
Africa.
In both situations, the two presidents had to deal with attacks on both the civilian and security apparatus.
While
Jomo managed to use Tom Mboya and Oginga Odinga to bring the Luo
community into Kanu, one of his first intra-party problems was the place
of Communist-leaning Odinga in Kenya’s politics.
While
it had been expected that Kenyatta would appoint Odinga to a senior
position, most likely his deputy, he opted not to name a deputy until
Kenya became fully independent.
Odinga was then
accused of being too close to the Chinese and branded a Communist
sympathiser who was using Chinese funding to build a following. Some
senior Kanu leaders, incited by London, accused Odinga of organising a
revolution and transferred most of Odinga’s Home Affairs ministry
portfolio to the Prime Minister’s office.
The irony is
that today, 51 years later, President Uhuru Kenyatta has publicly
declared he will work closely with the Chinese government, and last
month, hosted Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang who was on a whirlwind
tour of Africa.
MAIN OPPONENT
The
other irony is that Oginga’s son, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga,
remains the main opponent of Uhuru’s government and is today being seen
as the darling of Western governments. His critics accuse him of being
pro-Western, favoured over the Kenyatta-Ruto candidature in last year’s
elections. This was given credence by American and EU diplomatic
warnings to Kenyans not to elect Uhuru and Ruto, who both face crimes
against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court.
In
1964, Jomo Kenyatta inherited an economy that had been weakened by the
departure of settlers and foreign investors who felt that they had no
place in the new African-led economy.
While Kenyatta
required at least £56 million (Sh8.1 billion) to start his promised
battle against poverty, ignorance and disease, he could only raise £2.5
million (Sh361 million) through local taxation — the rest was to come
from foreign donors.
His son faces the same
predicament. Uhuru is grappling with raising Sh132 billion in a
sovereign bond to fill the yawning gaps in his Sh1.6 trillion budget.
While the main worry is about the badly listing tourism industry, which
is wavering as a result of travel advisories by the American and British
authorities, the government is now turning to domestic tourism to
sustain an industry that contributes 1.5 per cent of the GDP. Similar
measures were taken in 1964 as the investors in tourism sector decided
to leave. The government started funding locals to buy the hotels.
Kanu
had won the election on the promise of settling the land question. The
white settlers owned some eight million acres in the “White Highlands”
and the first task that faced Kenyatta was how to redistribute 1 million
acres under the donor-funded settlement schemes.
But
the senior Kenyatta did not solve the land question and only planted
seeds of discord after a skewed redistribution. Fifty-one years later,
Uhuru is struggling to resolve the same issue settle the landless and
give out title deeds.
The boiling point still remains
the former Rift Valley Province where the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin have
clashed over land. The other is the Coast region where huge tracts of
land were not adjudicated and are held by absentee landlords. How
Uhuru’s government addresses the question remains one of his waking
nightmares.
While Kadu had, in 1963, advocated a
federal majimbo government, Kanu stood for a single central government
which formed the basis of its one-finger salute. Today, the country has
opted for a devolved government.
The only difference
is that while Kenyatta openly promised to change the Constitution to
abolish majimbo, Uhuru has openly said he supports devolved governments.
But like his father, he has been accused of strengthening the
provincial administration by appointing powerful county commissioners to
oversee security matters at the district level. The Kenyatta state was
known for using the seven provincial commissioners who wielded immense
powers.
Uhuru Kenyatta is in office at a time when
statistics show that foreign direct investment (FDI) to Kenya has
increased. His father came to power at a time when there was a mass
exodus of specialist civil servants, farmers, industrialists,
financiers, traders, technicians and professional people, who
constituted the bulk of the non-African communities.
Kenyatta’s
main agenda was to persuade the nervous white settlers to stay, and he
addressed the famous Nakuru meeting, organised by both Lord Delamere and
Agriculture minister Bruce McKenzie, where he delivered his
forgive-and-forget speech to the settlers.
Today, the
fear of Kenya’s divisive politics still hangs on but mostly along
inter-tribe lines. While in 1963 Kenyatta had told the nation that
“Kenya is not going to be another Congo,” the fear of tribal feuds still
exists.
Among some of the settlers, Kenyatta remained
a terrorist. On July 15, as he attended a Commonwealth Conference in
London, he was attacked in a London street outside the Hilton Hotel by
two men – Martin Webster, 21, and John Tyndell, 30 — who were shouting:
“This is the man who murdered our white brethren in Africa.”
Today,
Uhuru Kenyatta walks into the Madaraka Day rally facing charges of
crimes against humanity at the ICC. Like his father, who used the
Kapenguria cases to build his political portfolio, Uhuru is accused by
his opponents of using the ICC charges to galvanise his supporters to
vote him into power last year.
No comments :
Post a Comment