Come Friday, 27th August and Kenya will be a new state. A ‘new kid’ in Africa. In fact towards this effect a Kenyan emissary should be sent to African Union on Saturday to deliver a message of a newly born baby. Among the key things the messenger should do is ask the AU chair to scrap Kenya from the list of its members-the Old Kenya- and replace it with New Kenya, as a different state not generic of the old.
It is true Old Kenya, which is counting its last days of existence, stinks enough; blood of innocent Kenyans assassinated since independence still ooze asking for justice, blood from Kenyans killed because they held different political opinions is spilt all over, children, spending cold nights in under porous tents in camps because they were displaced from their legal homes are incessantly crying, corruption is as prevalent as former president Moi from 1978 to 2002 and president Kibaki from 2003 to 2010 and the likes of John Githongo are cooling their heels in foreign countries after firmly standing against the common rite in most offices, police are still ‘harvesting’ daily from matatus and nobody cares, and nepotism is above merit for most employers. These and other odours oozing from never sealable pores in this slightly over 40 years-old state makes it more repugnant than before.
Thank God we are into the last days of this dirty and annoyingly ugly country.
Another emissary, a special one, should board a plane too to the Hague on Friday night. In the note to be delivered to none other than His Feared Luis Moreno-Ocampo, should be a clear message that Kenya has been reborn and therefore he should give welcome gifts sooner than later. As to what gifts, he ought to be well informed along this line: any new born child comes to the world without anything. Apart from the remains of the umbilical cord, the child is totally naked and has nothing. It’s the same for New Kenya. With a new constitutional order in place it will be fair to totally scrap the past and let the new country grow. These descriptions provide a hint of what gift he should give.However, one thing he must not do is to slap it with huge loads of international cases. It would be implausible to do this to an infant nation, a state that would have barely inhaled enough amounts of oxygen to get its lungs working.
The point is Ocampo’s services are seldom required when the ratified constitution is promulgated. He should forget prosecuting anyone from New Kenya at ICC as far as past elections mayhem is concerned . If he goes on and try to haul someone there,he ought to be reminded that doing so bring back memories of the putrid Old Kenya. If he gives a deaf ear to this reason, then the government should employ someone, a lawyer of high repute, to take him through the new laws. The lawyer should take enough time to stress clauses in the Bill of Rights to the Argentinean born prosecutor, who may fail to hand a prison term to former Democratic Republic of Congo rebels’ leader Thomas Lubanga. He has since failed to convince the ICC judges to hand a sentence to Lubanga.
That aside, the Bill of Rights, the Land Chapter, and other progressive clauses are well articulated in the new constitution and will prevent crimes such as those experienced after 2007 elections in future. So Ocampo should not worry anymore that impunity may prosper if perpetrators of the deadly violence were not imprisoned.
Besides the clauses, any idea of hauling suspects to the Hague is retrogressive and will put to a halt constitution implementation. Imagine if the President and the PM are asked to face trial at the Hague, who will take their positions in guiding the country to fully effect the document. None, not the politicians who could not agree on how to share power until Kibaki and Raila were forced to personally face each other.
Furthermore Ocampo's return to Kenya, when it’s in the moon savouring its rebirth, is totally uncalled for. He should just back off and give us a break at least for two years or so.
Just by the way
*Nazlin Omar, her who was beaten hands down in the last general election when she dreamt of being the Head of State, is doing her reputation more damage than praise by trying to block the promulgation of the new constitution. It’s true she’s starved of media coverage and publicity, but when she tries to use an important document such as the new set of laws to bet for publicity she messes up everything!
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