The whole country has been drafted in to vote on the impeachment of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua as if this is the most pressing challenge facing Kenya. Neither is Gachagua a terrorist to warrant this level of involvement of every arm of government.
Terrorism threats have not gone away. However, at no time was the public called upon to participate and be part of keeping Kenya safe.
There is no greater threat to a country than terrorism right now. However, a Deputy President’s impeachment being turned into a national crisis is not only irresponsible but damn right unfair.
I don’t know DP Gachagua from Adam. The views in this article are mine and solely based on what I am observing as an exercise in futility to, either distract the citizens from the ominous work the government is doing in hiding some evil things it wants to do in the dark, such as the Adani process of State Capture, or as I mentioned last week, it wishes to change the political landscape by forcing the DP out and planting a stooge who will be useful come the 2027 General election.
Whatever the urgent reason that now calls for impeachment of DP Gachagua, it does not warrant the huge expenditure. The billions being poured into the impeachment exercise is not justified in a country that is struggling to raise funds for development and traversing the world begging for loans.
Useless impeachment exercise
Public servants and public services are struggling to get salaries and funds and despite the government saying time and again that it has no funds, it somehow finds a money tree to get funds for a useless impeachment exercise that adds no value to the country or ordinary citizen’s life.
When Gen-Z protested recently, it did not single out DP Gachagua as the evil personified but did so to highlight the failures of the whole government. The anger led to the invasion of Parliament, and they made demands for the dissolution of Parliament and government to reset Kenya’s politics.
Accountability and good governance demanded sadly only led to impunity being ring-fenced with steel bars as the government turned out to be the government that doesn’t listen to the public but politicians. Hence, the same politicians have been effective in rubber-stamping most of the unwanted government policies and justifying the status quo.
It is not surprising, therefore, to see both the Speaker of the National Assembly and his deputy leading the calls for impeachment of DP Gachagua unlike the impartial arbiters they are supposed to be as required of them by the Constitution.
The impeachment of DP Gachagua is based on myriad things and two of those caught my attention, namely that he is corrupt and tribal. I do not think DP Gachagua is the vector that spread the diseases that caused corruption and tribalism to turn into the plague it is in Kenya. It is a problem that has been at the heart of Kenyan society for millennia. Tribalism almost ended the existence of Kenya as we know it in 2007/08 when ethnic violence engulfed the country. If there was a scan that would see through the corrupt and the tribal politicians, many of them would be found to be acutely tribal and corrupt. If the two were a pandemic and needed patients to be isolated, Kenya’s political landscape would be quickly depopulated.
Stay in power
The biggest challenge facing the government is that is tone-deaf to the needs of the citizens. It assumes it does not need the citizens if there are politicians that can be manipulated to allow the government to do whatever it damn well wants to do. What the government forgets again and again is that it is the citizens who vote. It may rely on manipulating the votes to stay in power, but one day even that system will fail. Kenyans have been pushed too far and their backs are against the wall and the only way to react will be going straight for the government’s jugular.
A sensible and sensitive government will need to stop and listen to Kenyans more than politicians. They have two ears and one mouth for a reason. The political survival game is isolating the people the government perhaps needs the most—the people themselves. For this reason, if ‘We, the People,’ are saying we are tired (punda amechoka and all the other cries for help), then it is time to stop and listen and not play survival games to cling onto power. Ruto-Must-Go may sound like a lame slogan for now, but it is laden with anger that any politician worth his/her salt must stop and take note.
As the hashtag ‘Fagia Wote’ takes traction, it is time to pose and ask whether the worst evil person is Mr Gachagua or the whole government needs to hold a mirror to itself and ask whether it is safe. It takes two to tango.
The government must focus on working for the people rather than being bogged down by survival instincts.
Source link : https://nation.africa/kenya/blogs-opinion/opinion/dp-rigathi-gachagua-is-the-lesser-evil-4787636
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Publish date : 2024-10-06 21:00:00
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