Dear, President Mwai Kibaki

Dear Sir, After Kenya emerged from the repressive and dictatorial regime under former despotic ruler Daniel Moi, bringing to an end his 24-years of misrule, the country has disintegrated further into a state of political apathy. This time you, yourself have decided to supervise increased state institutionalised corruption, repressionn and other related human rights abuse. The country has been subjected to increased tribalism, individualism with your full knowledge.

Sir, its my honest believe that your administration is evading a historic responsibility by failing to resolve issues that are pertinent to a peaceful transition and the very future of democracy, human rights and transitional justice in Kenya. Sir, l wish to remind you and your fellow members of the infamous ‘Muthaiga club’ that the power-sharing deal reached upon under the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, 2008 was primarily because your government was regarded as unpopular, deceptive and undemocratic by majority of Kenyans. Undemocratic because the disputed Dec 27 Presidential polls were characterised by violence and claims of malpractice; the state instruments were partisan; your government was intolerant to divergent opinions; and was insensitive to popular demands.

However, since the power-sharing deal was reached, there have been undercurrents that your administration is no different from its predecessor after all.

Firstly, though your government appeares more tolerant to different opinions, recent events indicate that the your regime is growing increasingly sensitive by the day. Indeed, like the Moi dictatorship of early 1980s, your administration is eager to use the oppressive tools of the state, including the provincial administration, to muzzle opposing opinions. Sir, recent attempt by your administration to bar members of the civil society to freely hold peaceful protests and the forceful repatriation of internally displaced people back to their ancestral homes has been interpreted in this light.

Paradoxically, while you were in the opposition, you vigorously campaigned for the dismantling of the provincial administration. Your then official opposition party, Democratic Party of Kenya, indeed presented a memorandum to the constitution of Kenya Review Commission calling for the scrapping of the provincial administration. However, on assuming power, you have not only defended the administration, but ministers in your government have been quoted as vowing to weed out those sympathetic to the opposition and in fact they have engaged in a systematic conspiracy to victimise those who served in the previous government.

Secondly, your leadership has increasingly been using the same old methods. In the Dec 27 election, ministers allied to your-the Party of National Unity, were criss-crossing their strong holds using the trappings of power, state resources and promising largesse from the state. Yet, when they were in the opposition six year ago, they constantly accused KANU, which was in power then, of using state resources for partisan gains. Closely related to that, of course, is the old tactic of divide and rule and the mentality that only those who support your government will benefit from government resources. Week after week, your ministers are quoted exhorting the various ethnic communities to support the your unpopular regime if they hope to benefit from its largesse.

Sir, it worthy to note that not even yester-years’ democracy and human rights crusaders are immune from this anachronistic thinking being perpetuated by your regime. Indeed, remember when you visited the violence prone districts of Rift Valley, members of your Kikuyu tribe expressed fear of how they had been exposed to a ‘systematic genocide’ targeting to wipe them from parts of the Rift Valley. They alleged a deliberate conspiracy to isolate and condemn them for voting for you. Apparently, the right to an opinion and association has lost meaning now that you are in power courtesy of a flawed and fraudulent process.

Thirdly, the old issue of selective application of the law has reared its ugly head again. There are increasing concerns that the war against corruption is turning out to be a mirage under your leadership. Your have perfected the selective and targeted conspiracy at specific individuals and families in the name of fighting corruption. The refusal to prosecute known perpetrators of the infamous Goldenburg and Anglosleasing scandals are just but examples of your government’s ineptness to deal with graft.

Sir, many key members of your government were in fact stalwarts of the previous administration. It’s therefore highly inconceivable that they were not involved in the corruption of that era. Indeed, their names appear in several public accounts and public investment committee reports. Others were mentioned in the various human rights reports as players in various human rights abuses, including ethnic violence that was witnessed in 1992, 1997, 2002 and have also played an active role in planning and bank rolling of the post-election violence witnessed after the December 27 disputed vote.

Yet, today, they continue serving in the cabinet as ministers, assistant ministers and others as influential PNU members of parliament, while your close allies continue making allegations against certain families and individuals. Again the old adage that charity begins at home appears to have lost its meaning under your leadership.

And fourthly is the question of the current coalition’s internal democracy. As it were, a political party cannot give a country what it lacks internally. Thus, PNU and ODM cannot entrench democracy in the country if they cannot grant the same to its members and more primarily to the Kenyan people. One measure of a party’s attitude towards democracy is its capacity to subject its leaders to popular mandate, which is through party elections and the respect to multi-party democracy. Yet, this is the most divisive issue in your coalition arrangement.

The established tradition worldwide is that parties, whose ideological persuasions are close, form coalitions after elections in order to constitute a government, where no single party wins a majority. For PNU and ODM, political parties and amorphous groups have yet again formed the coalition regardless of their political persuasions after the disputed Dec 27 polls. Thus, the coalition lacks clear structures and leadership, has no quantifiable membership, lacks unifying ideology and, much worse, has not agreed whether to be one party or to retain its current amorphous state. The persistent war between factions of the coalitions over cabinet positions means that the coalition will take sometime before it can guarantee its membership internal democracy. And that undermines the capacity of the coalition to entrench democracy in the country.

On the human rights front, the coalition government must do better than what your previous NARC and Daniel Moi’s KANU did. On assuming power, the NARC government accorded human rights campaigners positions in its ranks, opened torture chambers - among them the famous Nyayo House - and cautioned the security organs against abusing suspects’ rights. However, there have been genuine concerns that the country may have slided back into the days of torture and a culture of impunity. In recent weeks, there have been complaints that police officers are perpetrating arbitrary arrests; extra-judicial killings are still prevalent while the security officers have been accused of torturing suspects, notably during and after the post-election period.

Moreover, the government recently initiated a security operation in Mount Elgon district, which continues despite fierce battles between the residents and the security forces. While the number of the dead remains unknown, there are fears that the operation will leave behind trails of human rights abuses, which will never be documented.

Sir, there are also expressions of genuine grievances arising from the recent efforts to form a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. The concerns are that the proposed commission is a tactic to witch-hunt and humiliate certain individuals and communities, and not an effort to promote national reconciliation that is badly needed to heal the scares of the Dec 27 post-election violence.

The old tactic of destroying people’s income basis in an effort to remove them from certain areas, which was perfected in the 1990s, has been brought back. In the last few weeks, your local government Minister, Uhuru Mwigai Kenyatta, in conjunction with the Nairobi City Council, has been demolishing informal business structures in order to remove those businesses from supposedly the Central Business District and road reserves. The problem is that this destruction, which has only been conducted in upmarket areas, leaves many people without an income and thus compromises their economic rights.

More importantly, the recent sale of Safaricom IPO to offshore foreign investors by your finance minister Amos Kimunya has sent shock waves into the spines of many Kenyans and human rights activists. Indeed, the sale has met resistance from many quarters including members of parliament.

Sir, the resistance has its roots in two areas. Firstly, the government announced the sale without consulting with stakeholders, and appeared to be bowing to pressure from foreign individual and companies. Indeed, despite protests against this sale, the government has indicated its resolve not to withdraw the sale. Secondly, and much worse, the identity of the directors of Mobitelea- a major shareholder in Safaricom-with a 5 per cent stake in Vodafon Kenya Limited remains unknown, this runs against the national spirit and militates against our national sovereignty and economic interests in favour of the interests of foreign masters and a few selfish fraudsters working on behalf of your government.

Sir, it’s embarrassing that a number of your senior ministers are engaging in a conspiracy to blackmail and implicate you in their failed schemes to defraud the tax payers. Recent events where you have been appearing in prearranged photo sessions with them has been used to blackmail you in the face of the media. In fact, the media bears the brunt for openly criticising this clique of good for nothing ministers.

You will remember that even in the face of international pressure for you and Raila Odinga to cede ground and enter a compromised political solution and save the country from sliding the Rwanda way, some of your ministers led by Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Martha Karua held a ‘dangerous hard line’ position. In fact, she even verbally engaged the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and dared to face off with the US Secretary of State Condeleza Rice. It took your own heart and mind to resolve the stalemate that had played at Serena.