Afrowrite’s Weblog

In Africa, we don’t come from bad to good and then better. Many times we come from bad to worse and then worst. So now Kenyans are saying founding President Jomo Kenyatta was bad and Daniel arap Moi, who took over from him was worse. And President Mwai Kibaki who took over from Moi, is worst.

So will they call back retired President Daniel arap Moi in the next General Election in 2012, now that we have run out of superlatives to describe Prime Minister and “President-apparent”, Raila Odinga? Indications are that if Moi decides on a come-back, Kenyans will be ready for him.

The Fear Factor

One reason they will do so is the plain old fear of the unknown. Moi , when he was President, used to urge Kenyans to always solve their problems by starting from the known and then going on to the unknown. He however disappointed Kenyans in so basic ways, not least important of them being bankrupting the country, that they were willing to start from the unknown by electing Mwai Kibaki as president.

Humiliation and Kibaki

And during the transition, no one was more pilloried, more humiliated than Moi even though he was still the president. In the streets, the song was the same from the Indian Ocean on one side of the country to the Great Lake Victoria on the other border, “All things are possible without Moi.” And amid the humiliation, Moi laughed and said, “You people are laughing today, but you will come calling for me one day!”

The retort of Kibaki and his supporters was to urge Moi to “Go home and watch how modern, efficient governments are run!” (See for example, the comments of the then Minister for Justice and Constitution Affairs Mr. Kiraitu Murugi, a staunch Kibaki supporter who recently expressed his support for Moi with an about-faced comment, ‘There are no permanent enemies in politics.”)

Disappointment

But hardly a year into Kibaki’s presidency Kenyans began to notice the same evils they had forced Moi out for were creeping back, this time magnified and multiplied many times over. Tribalism increased. Corruption and looting of public funds became open and normal. Impunity for those close to Kibaki and those in power became normal, too. And so on and so forth until you can turn over 100 pages!

Kenyans were back again in the streets with their familiar song and a new name, “Everything is possible without Kibaki!” But Kibaki had sung the same song with them and knew their strategies. He simply wasn’t prepared to be humiliated out of the comfortable State House. So he just “messed up” the election and before the infuriated Kenyans could blink, he had been sworn in as President by his friends and “learned friends.”

What was the result? Kenya is a subject of criminal investigations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and we have a coalition government that doesn’t function. Disappointed Kenyans killed and maimed each other.And, Kenya, a shinning example of peace came close to being classified with the Sudan and Liberia and the like as a failed state. Kibaki , Kenyans said, is the worst. But who will replace him when his term ends in 2012?

Why Raila Can’t do?

Prime Minister, Raila Odiga would naturally have done so. But he has shown he cannot be trusted. First, he gave all the jobs to his tribesmen and women – including his sisters! Second, he is incoherent – only his friends know what he talks about. Apparently, he doesn’t know Kiswahili. And he doesn’t know English. We, who don’t speak Dholuo, only assume he knows his mother tongue because we hear him mumble something in it sometimes. In short, we don’t know what Raila knows. Or who he is. He is an unknown.

On the other hand, we know what Moi knows. He is the known. He speaks bad Kiswahili. And bad English. But we know what he talks about. He is the known.