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Political capital from bashing Kenya? |
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Written by Rodgers Akombe
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
Imagine yourself as a presidential candidate in the Kenyan general elections.
You are invited as a keynote speaker in a meeting comprising of
university students -drawn from all Tanzanian universities- at the
University of Dar es Salaam .
What will you tell these students? Will
you use the forum to campaign for presidency?
During Barrack Obama’s tour in Africa, we saw him market the USA as a beacon of hope. He called on African government to develop a closer relationship with the USA for the benefit of the citizens of both the continent and of America. He also took a HIV test in Kenya to motivate Kenyans to participate in testing and prevention of AIDs. Please note that at the time, Mr. Obama had shown interest in running for office.
Back in Kenya, the country's interests take the back burner as personal ambitions are put on overdrive. This was clearly evident when Raila Odinga took his campaign overseas with claims that the Kenyan economy and the Nairobi Stock Exchange thrive on drug money. Some may argue that he had every right to make such ridiculous claims because he was addressing a crowd comprising mainly of Kenyan citizens. But what then would we make of his keynote speech to over 10,000 East African Community university students in Kampala? In the speech Raila lampooned President Mwai Kibaki telling him that he must meet all ODM-K demands for “minimum reforms” or else… He read out ODM-K’s demands to these students even when it was clear that they could not vote in Kenyan elections.
There are many issues affecting the three East African Community members that Raila could have talked about instead of using the inter-university forum to advance his campaign for presidency. Chief among these are the issues of the EAC economy and the political integration of these three countries.
In the realization that these students will be shaping up future policies that affect the EAC, Raila should have raised the issue of cross border trade, work permits, and development of infrastructure to ease movement within the region. As of today, Tanzania remains the only country in the region where Kenyans have to go through red-tape regulations to get work permits.
In March of last year, Kenyan journalists were arrested in Tanzania and deported. Kenyan businesses in Tanzania have also had their employees deported as Tanzanians claim to be apprehensive of Kenyans being overly-aggressive in business. Raila should have used this forum to reassure Tanzanians of our commitment to make the EAC a success by encouraging cross border employment and investment. Instead, Mr. Odinga chose to the path of party activism and threw statesmanship out of the window.
The inter-university forum would have been the best venue to challenge students to think about how best the region can utilize resources from Lake Victoria. In the past we have seen Ugandan forces crossing into Kenyan waters to arrest fishermen. This issue touches the interests of Mfangano Islands residents who depend on fishing.
It is a shame that our leaders are behaving akin to the woman who requested King Solomon to split up the baby so that each can have a share. These leaders want to be president but they use foreign countries as platforms to ridicule their motherland and spread bold lies. Will they have an intact country to govern if their preoccupation is selling Kenya as a dead horse?
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 April 2007 )
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One thing is clear though, not all criticisms are worthy much consideration, especially those based on emotive and psychographic premises.
Some wrong assumptions many people rush to make for example, are;
(a) that only Tanzanians comprise the University population in Tanzanian Universities (or Ugandans in Ugandan Universities respectively)
(b) that bad governance issues must not be discussed beyond our borders lest one is condemned for unpatriotism.
(c) that we must always emulate what certain "perceived' foreign role models do.
Who says that? EA is slowly moving towards integration which is quite evident in the education sector.
Higher education in all three EA Universities has been largely liberalized and there's a high rate of inter-country cross-overs for higher education between them. Many may in fact be surprised at the high numbers of Kenyan citizens studying in Ugandan Universities.
I am thus not surprised at all that many Kenyan citizens(& voters) would be interested in attending an event whose keynote speaker is Raila Odinga in Kampala.
About choice of discussion topics, (including bad governance issues), I think it would be foolhardy to address an educated audience on "Pan-Africanism" , with regard to EA, without forthrightly addressing local matters of social, political and economic cores of the ideal itself. Hushing matters has never been part of scholarly discourse.
Truthfulness, curiosity, full disclosure and frank discussions are the hallmarks of intellectualism. That's exactly why Obama never fails to admit at America's shortcomings towards Africa and to the rest of the world (?Iraq) when addressing Kenyan students.
For those who've been to Universities in EA, these are essentially the -"hotbeds" that shape up most political, social, economic and ideological direction a country takes, especially taking governance matters very seriously.
The relative degrees of democratic freedoms currently enjoyed in the three EA countries (which allows such political events in the first place), are primarily results of primordial political activities within the very institutions.
Which EA country would have allowed such political events 15 years ago? Uganda is actually a step ahead of Kenya in this specific regard, since it would be ironically easier for Obama to address a local university in Kenya than it would for Raila who's Kenyan.
On the false and misguided concept of "hushing local matters" when speaking in foreign venues, it's worthy noting that the same Raila Odinga (alongside Kibaki and others) previously addressed congressional hearings at the capitol hill in Washington DC in the early 90's detailing to Congress exactly what the repressive Moi regime was all about. They seperately addressed numerous political gatherings for Kenyans doing the same thing.
Their efforts were certainly not in vain, their discussion of "local" matters to "foreign audiences" then was never an issue to many. Hypocrisy comes in many forms. If Raila talked in the US about Torture chambers and Goldenberg then,..what is wrong with him discussing Artur brothers and Anglo-Leasing in the same place today?
I think it is very patriotic and forthright for any Kenyan to alert the public about contraband or illegal drug proceeds finding their way, through money laundering loopholes, into Kenya's stock exchange and Real Estate sectors.
Such proceeds may be good for the short term economy but may have long term social ramifications to our society, if they truly exist ( which I suspect thanks to the Artur brothers expose').
Former Presidential candidate John Kerry while campaigning in 2004, made a trip to France and addressed an international foreign policy conference castigating his government's policy on "the Iraq invasion". This was followed by a later trip to Paris after the elections where he met French premier Chiraq. All his words were in direct contradiction to the governing policy of Bush. That was not unpatriotism on Kerry's part.
Lastly, if the best topic with which to address University intellectuals and students is,..."How do we stop your country's policemen from arresting our country's fishermen in Lake Victoria" then I think we still suffer from the Moi regime hangovers. Flights of wild ideas can be sometimes quite dangerous!
Job.