How to make a new constitution in Kenya today

A new constitution, a new social contract for the people of Kenya and its leaders should be developed as soon as possible and guarded against an impending overthrow by parliament.

Parliamentarians have taken their role of lawmaking a notch higher and are proposing themselves as a "Constituent Assembly" through the provisions of the Constitution of Kenya Review Act 2008. This is unlawful and is prone to legal challenge. The civil society and religious groups and other actors have pointed at this misnomer since the Act was put in place in December 08 but to date, even in the Kenya Statute [Miscellaneous Amendment] Bill 2009, the intent to disenfranchise Kenyans is rife.

Parliamentarians are Kenyans, but they are elected for parliamentary function and not for constitution making. If, as is the case today, they make a law that ensures that they are the ones - and only ones - to be the clearing house of the new constitution for Kenya, this is unacceptable. Likewise, the political party sideshows of "minimum" and "comprehensive" reforms are time-wasting pranks that show the lack of leadership in this country. We need a new constitution, not political grandstanding.

It is a torturous road towards a new constitution, and we have made good steps so far as a nation. We should neither lose hope nor accept disenfranchisement. We require the MPs to amend the Miscellaneous Amendment Bill to reflect the following:

1. That the Reference Group be expanded to include the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and other groups (such as parliamentary political party representatives) as may be necessary after review of the proposals made - as substantive members, and the Committee of Experts [CoE] - as ex-official.

2. That this group be renamed Council of Reference and be given a substantive role in the constitution making process. As it is, it is at the mercy of the CoE in terms of convening and it has no role as such.

3. That the non-consensus issues be debated by the Council of Reference and passed for adoption by parliament

4. That parliament, since it will be represented in the Council of Reference by the PSC and other parliamentarians, will have no role in proposing further amendments to the Draft Constitution before it is published by the AG. However, where parliament has proposals, these will be processed and consensus build on them by the Council of Reference.

5. That where consensus is developed on issues, these be input in the draft to go for a national YES referendum. This will be a document WITHOUT contentious issues, a document that contains all issues that Kenyans agree on - it will contain what has been popularly known as the 80% good provisions!

6. That where there is lack of consensus on an issue, this issue be put aside framed into a question for an issue-referendum {YES/NO}. This will mean that the majority vote on the issue is the decision to be upheld. If this does not happen, further consensus can be built on them even after the referendum on the main document has passed.

7. That a specific timeframe (at most 2 years) for resolution of these non-consensus issues be set and adhered to. In this time of renegotiation, Kenyans will be enjoying a new {though incomplete} constitution - which is FAR MUCH better than the tattered one we have now.

This is the ONLY way of ensuring that we have a new constitutional framework and that we do not have disagreements leading to a useless document, hence a political campaign for a NO vote that will have no other role but to divide Kenyans the more.

Let nobody call these Minumum Reforms, for it is not. This is a progressive way of achieving comprehensive reforms.

Migingo yawa!

"the island is in Kenya, but the waters are in uganda"



I do not think it is wise to continue with the sentence up to the slur on the lakeside Kenyan Luo, for i feel it is too demeaning...or really it may have been the political statement that hon museveni was making? fishy business!



Consider that 160million shillings, half of which was contributed by you, the Kenyan tax payer, is being used for the survey. And now there is a presidential joke about it.



Consider that museveni and kibaki have twice met over the island, and each time, there has been political ill will from uganda.



then ask the questions

1. whose ploy was it that the migingo island became a political issue?


2. what interest does uganda have on the island?


3. if museveni knew that the island was in Kenya, why did he order a flag to fly on the island? he readily could have had a buoy anchored nearby and floating on the waters flying a ugandan flag!


4. what political mileage kibaki got/didn't get from the migingo saga?


5. what political mileage raila got/didn't get from it?

in museveni's latest utterance, apart from the ethnic slur, or because of it, we are made aware that all this bickering has been a side issue, a side kick from the more pressing matters of the day. so what happened when we were talking of migingo?

1. the ugandan flag was flying in a part of kenyan territory (migingo!)
2. the democratic space was constricted by the state. there have been several cases of people and groups denied - on grounds of security - the space to hold public meetings


3. discussions on extra judicial killings have gone to the back burner


4. the Kenyan parliament has gained ground on all other arms of government and has rode rough shod on the electorate and we, indeed, face a likelihood of parliamentary dictatorship


5. the economic crunch hit Kenya, and we are still reeling in confusion


6. mungiki reared its ugly head and many Kenyans now lie dead in shallow graves


7. kilanguni happened, and we missed the point when we concentrated on raila and kibaki and forgot about ourselves -the tax payers


8. the attendance to and presentation at the akiwumi commission has gone on a low key...and there is the possibility of maintaining status quo at the least or mps salaries being increased


9. kibaki appointed judges alone, sending karua into a paroxysm and sending signals of his unrelenting belief in the all powerful presidency


10. maize maize maize stolen stolen stolen and contaminated consignment released to public


11. the constitutional debate died, with committee of experts grounded and a non-reformer appointed to the ministry


12. the treasury thieves outsmarted parliament on about 15 billion irregularity
13. etc

today, 80 million poorer, Kenya -the people of- are abused by a despotic leader of a neighbouring nation and the said Kenyan leaders see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil

migingo yawa!

the speaker

the speaker...

omwana wa ingo aka kenneth marende has done us proud...


he has proved, perceptually or otherwise that he is neither odm nor pnu; like me, he is a kenyan - period!

what a mesmerising position! imagine being called the speaker ( the person who speaks...assumably when all others are quiet)

he, in unswerving dignity, talked the kalonzo's and the raila's to silence, he decided that government (read executive authority) can go take a rope and hang on the nearest tree, but the house in which he speaks, must have a way to conduct business!

and that is the beauty of knowing your job. he spoke, and all was put to rest. forget that it is temporal, just consider the largess that he exhibited, consider the ground that he broke.

1. he showed that parliament may refuse to be government (regardless of the fact that it is an integral arm of the same)
2. he, for once in the history of the coalition government, made all of us see raila and kibaki as totally unimportant in our lives
3. he demystified the authority of the executive ... the all powerful executive was reduced to second fiddle
4. he, unlike the so called principals, got support from all sides of the house

or is it that the deal had to be brokered because mps do not want to go home? (the house without a leader of the HBC would have adjourned for six months...by the time these people got back to sit, inflation would have hit the roof, all prices and especially those of essential commodities would have sky-rocketed and public anger would see us march to the august hse and set it on an august blaze!)

kenyans need to seize this moment and remove the raila's and the kibaki's from their lives. by the way, these guys are just apologists from high flying thieves, themselves complicit and thus inextricably compromised; and hence unable to lead us to any prosperity except the rotten slime of convoluted corruption.

any other man or woman ready to stand up for the counting?

those that participated in the sex boycott are already standing...the rest of you are what kenya does not need...liabilities!

bure kabisa!

migingo

You are sure i have tried not to write anything for the last 31 days.

I was dry and tired of the country turned butchery...of the country at peace turned to a country at war, both with the word and the sword

I am told people in Kirinyaga are killing each other apparently because they are suspected to be mungiki or mungiki haters...

But i wrote here today because of Migingo.

And surely, Migingo's is an amazing affair! Can you imagine a government allowing another government to hoist a flag of a different sovereignity in its land, alow the soldiers of that other country to tax and harras its own citizens and generally to run the affairs of that place?

That government that allows such incredulity is not a government!

And now we are being wooed to think diplomacy? Goodness gracious! What diplomacy? What is the diplomacy of forceful and armed territorial occupation?

Sisi sio wajinga!

Migingo has been sold to Uganda? Ask Kibaki why he is quiet if this is not a rumour!

This is another way of privatisation!

ASSASSINATIONS

If anybody in this country of ours called Kenya really wants to kill you, my dear reader, and they have no way of going about it, and especially if that person can access a gun or that person is in the employ of one of these indisciplined forces that we support with our taxes, they just brand you Mungiki and poof! you are gone.

Kingara Kamau and GPO Oulu were thus labeled and executed. Thursday 5th March 09 at around 6.30pm on Mamlaka Rd/Statehouse rd, Nairobi

Why were they labeled thus?
They had given extensive reports to Prof Alston the UN Special Rapporteur and were finalising a more extensive report on their findings on the extra-judicial killings of alleged Mungiki by police. They were also mobilising for a meeting of the widows of the hitherto executed youngmen in an effort to advocate for the end of the macabre murders.

Who killed them?
Grow up! How do you expect the police to know? It could be anybody!

Note:
A University of Nairobi student, carrying the book he was reading in the library, was judged as a threat to state security in the aftermath of the execution and, likewise, murdered.

Question:
Now, where are we at as a nation?

Answer:
We are trying all we can to ensure the grand collission survives to 2012; we are ensuring that the vision 2030 is realised; we are undertaking police reforms; we are creating a new constitution; we are increasing the wealth creation /economic growth index

Question
How?

Answer
By eliminating people who tell the truth to us and to the world. People who spent their lives fighting for the rights of others.

Lable?
Enemies of development. Idlers. Thugs. Adherents to criminal gangs.

MORAL OF THE STORY
Be a dead banana: hear no evil, see no evil, tell of no evil and you shall be safe.

Front Door Colonialists

I have argued here before, and I hereby do, that the problems facing this our country are of a political nature. This is not space science and I am sure you know this already. So what's the point of my rhetoric?

There is the english proverb that goes on about a forest and trees. I do not know which way it goes in reference to confused people who harp on unimportant ideas - whether they are in the forest or they have missed it for the trees. But one thing is certain to me, Kenya has one huge forest peopled by trees of problems: there is a tree each for the stolen maize, the unaffordable maize flour, the IDPs still in the camps, the siphoned fuel, the extrajudicial killings, the negligence leading to deaths by fire, the lost parliament, the dead parliamentarians, the inept and corrupt principals, the idle youth, the cordless accord, the theft of tax monies, the killed new constitution making process etc etc etc....trees trees and trees. So where is the forest?

It must have been Saturday 28th when honour less beth mugo called Prof Alston a colonialist using the backdoor (i.e UN status and responsibility) to colonise Kenya (i.e to ask for the resignation of people -smiling wako and arrogant ali - who have abetted the killing of over 500 youths in the name of Mungiki extermination.)

I do not know whether Prof Alston's ten day visit brought a forest or the trees. Why did Kiraithe react so energetically, to the extent of identifying Commissioner Hassan of KNCHR as the enemy? Why are our politicians reacting to the findings as if Alston came from outer space? Haven't we had these reports here for so long? has the civil society not published these reports before? Is is in doubt that ali, wako, the perpetrators of PEV, the maize and oil thieves etc should go home? Is it in doubt that raila and kibaki have failed?

We can deal with back door colonialists as a people, but, we must admit, we have been unable to deal with front door colonialists.

So who are the front door colonialists? kibaki, raila, ministers, mps, police, attorney general, local government councils, all anti-land reform crusaders, all anti new constitution crusaders (note: those politicians shouting for a new constitution are the first to put bottlenecks to its realisation!), all thieves (legitimate or otherwise) of public resources etc.

So who are the colonised: the Kenyan Public!

How then do we deal with front door colonialists?

REMOVE THEM FROM OFFICE!

We do not need a president or prime minister complete with 42 significant others and over fifty insignificant others plus over one hundred attendants and about five hundred hangers on in this country who are feeding on our taxes, stealing us blind, confounding our attempts at legal redress, dictating that we be amnesic and that we see god (salvation) in them! no.

imagine these people who are our problem are just below one thousand!

How cowardly we are as a nation, that thirty five million people are made so very miserable by so few confabulating noise makers!

Solution?

some lessons:

France: Revolution! The people forced the king and the royalty to step aside

Sierra Leone: Paraded and shot. Anarchy spread (wrong way)

Uganda: A "benevolent" dictator did them good with extermination of a few before he turned into a psychopath and turned against the people (wrong way)

Serbia: Revolution! People organised and threw milosevic and his entourage out

WHAT KENYANS NEED TO DO

Make Kenya unsuitable for living by these Front Door Colonialists!

1. Media to stop covering their none sense
2. mps to be prevented from holding rallies at home or elsewhere
3. Kenyans to stop paying taxes en mass
4. popular confiscation of proceeds from ill-gotten wealth (invade houses of mps etc)
5. armed forces to be educated to join other Kenyans
6. call for popular elections - current and past (elected or otherwise) office holders not eligible
7. people to promulgate their own new constitution

Do we have the mettle to do this?

YES!

This requires a great deal of organising, alot of logistics, but it can be done. This is the only way!