In the coming days, as we have done like clockwork for eons, we
will resolve to quit smoking and drinking to excess, lose weight, eat
healthy, buy a piece of land and finally start building that house,
spare more time for our spouses and children, disentangle ourselves from
the clutches of that shady preacher, stand more firmly on our own two
feet, et cetera, et cetera.
Then before we realise it,
another year is upon us and we find ourselves making most of those same
old resolutions all over again.
Tired of sounding like
a stuck record, I am not making any personal resolutions this time
around. Instead, I will make resolutions for those whose every word and
deed can impact the lives of millions.
PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA AND DEPUTY PRESIDENT WILLIAM RUTO:
Guys,
the election campaigns ended a long time. That you occupy the most
important offices in the land is no longer in dispute. It is safe now to
ease off on electoral mode, accept, and move on.
Call
off the attack dogs on social media and the political platform and halt
those retrogressive pieces of legislation and administrative actions
that indicate a government under siege and afraid of its own shadow.
Red
herrings and finger-pointing may excite the already converted, but
everybody else can see that it is not the opposition, the media, civil
society, or Western governments that are responsible for the very
serious security problems afflicting the nation.
You can get on with the job of tackling terrorists without diverting energies to fighting imaginary enemies.
Oh,
and it is also time to start uniting the nation. You cannot
successfully confront myriad challenges while pursuing divisive “us
versus them” strategies.
You are leaders of Kenya now, not just a political enterprise known as the Jubilee coalition.
RAILA ODINGA, KALONZO MUSYOKA AND MOSES WETANG'ULA:
I
sometimes cannot figure out whether you mohines should be called the
Three Musketeers or the Three Stooges. As leaders of the opposition Cord
Alliance, you occupy pivotal space in the body politic.
You
are supposed to be the government-in-waiting, providing alternative
vision, policies, and programmes. Last year you did seem to promise
something, but the Okoa Kenya initiative seems to have fizzled out even
as evidence mounts of the need for a strong, united opposition to keep
the government in check.
It is the opposition that can
best counter the growing drift towards Kanu-style intolerance. You will
do this best by projecting yourselves as a responsible alternative
government, not by introducing thuggery into the National Assembly and
demonstrating that you are incapable of even managing democratic
elections in your own parties.
Cord leaders Raila Odinga (centre), Moses
Wetang’ula (right), Kalonzo Musyoka and James Orengo (left) address a
news conference in Nairobi on November 18, 2014. FILE PHOTO | ANTHONY
OMUYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
NATIONAL SPEAKER JUSTIN MUTURI:
Mr
Speaker, Sir, you rate mention solo here, without your Senate
counterpart Ekwee Ethuro, because you are the one making news for all
the wrong reasons.
Please, in the new year, look back
into recent history and borrow something from your two predecessors,
Francis ole Kaparo and Kenneth Marende. Both came into office as
nominees of political parties, but once they took the seat, they became
Speaker of the House, not Speaker of one side.
You can learn that being Speaker carries onerous national responsibilities and is far removed from being a party youth winger.
CHIEF JUSTICE WILLY MUTUNGA:
Those in the know say that corruption and incompetence in the Judiciary is approaching Moi-era proportions. Enough said.
CABINET SECRETARY FOR INTERIOR JOSEPH NKAISSERY:
Everyone
lauded your military record on being named to replace the hapless
Joseph ole Lenku. But remember, kind Sir, you are employed as a manager,
not a soldier.
You will not personally be leading
troops into battle against the Al-Shabaab terrorists, but metaphorically
you will be on the frontlines. Yours will be to put in place and manage
an effective security plan that will rid Kenya of the menace of
terrorists, bandits, and other malcontents.
You do not
have the luxury of time. And remember, your loyalty must be first and
foremost to Kenyans, not to appointing authorities who have demonstrated
proclivity towards playing petty politics with serious security issues.
CHIEF OF DEFENCE FORCES JULIUS KARANGI:
For some reason, General, you are seen as the face of what looks like creeping militarisation under the UhuRuto regime.
The
public tends to see your hand in the appointment of serving or retired
military officers — presumably subservient to you — to key civil
security offices.
Ditto the ready deployment of the
military to domestic security challenges, sometimes with disastrous
results, to put it politely, as with the Westgate siege. It also
sometimes seems that President Kenyatta implicitly trusts you on
national security to the exclusion of everyone else or that he is like
putty in your hands.
Maybe there is no good reason for
all that, but impressions and perceptions do matter. It might be a good
idea, as you prepare for your retirement, to step back a little bit.
You can still exercise power and influence from behind the scenes.
INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE A.N. OTHER:
Your identity is still unknown, but yours will be one of the most keenly awaited appointments.
Your
predecessor, David Kimaiyo, and his titular boss, Interior Cabinet
Secretary Joseph ole Lenku, took the fall for failures in the security
establishment that have seen an upsurge in terrorist attacks. It will be
up to you to determine whether the police can play their effective role
in restoring security.
You will realise soon enough
that contrary to finger-pointing from your political superiors, the
enemy is not the new Constitution, enhanced democratic space, human
rights, free expression, independent media, civil society, or the
opposition.
It is a monster called Al-Shabaab and the
inability or unwillingness of the security agencies to take the battle
to it, as well as to cattle rustlers, clan militias, bandits, and
assorted criminals.
If you approach your job
determined to take on the enemy, you might succeed. If you approach it
as a lap dog of the political leadership, you will fail.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL GITHU MUIGAI:
Dear
Mr AG, I sometimes wonder whether you are the government’s chief legal
adviser or the President’s personal counsel. Anyway, now that President
Kenyatta has the ICC yoke off his neck, perhaps you will take time to
advise him that laws taking us back to dictatorship are more trouble
than they are worth.
They will not only tie up the
government in the constitutional court, but spell a PR disaster for the
President personally. In any case, many of the laws rammed through
Parliament under the guise of beefing up the war on terrorism actually
add little to that particular cause.
Perhaps it might
help in the coming year if you took control and halted this trend of
laws crafted by Jubilee MPs, activists, and campaigners.
DPP KERIAKO TOBIKO, ANTI-CORRUPTION BOSS MUMO MATEMU AND CID DIRECTOR NDEGWA MUHORO:
Although
you occupy distinct and separate offices, I address you jointly because
you represent the failure to punish serious crime. We have heard from
your respective offices very much bark but almost zero bite when it
comes to successful investigation and prosecution of grand corruption,
the authors of political and ethnic violence, narcotics and game
poaching kingpins, and so on and so on.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com. @machariagaitho on Twitter
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