BY:FWAMBA NC FWAMBA..THE CONSTITUTION UNDER ATTACK

MR PRESIDENT,THE NEW CONSTITUTION IS UNDER ATTACK. By Fwamba NC Fwamba.................................................................... When we campaigned, voted and promulgated the constitution on 27th August 2010, president Kibaki and other government officials took fresh oath of office. Unlike the rest of the leaders, protection of the constitution was part of the presidential oath and responsibility. That is why he holds an extra burden of ensuring that our constitution is adhered to at all times. The walk to attaining the constitution was rough in the history of this country and therefore it was a sigh of relief to majority of Kenyans especially those who suffered under Kanu’s monolithic dictatorship. Our constitution is not yet one year old and there appears to be serious confusion caused by various interpretations of the law by diverse individuals and non governmental organizations. The constitution Implementation Commission which is entrusted with overseeing the process of implementing the constitution appears not left behind in the creation of this confusion. Every time the chair of the commission speaks, it vividly comes out that he is trying to express his personal opinion as opposed to making utterances that are reflective of the constitution and the mandate of the CIC. In the recent past, there has been a spirited campaign through the media with people lobbying for their preferred candidates to take up the position of the Attorney General. Most notable is Professor Makau Mutua’s article in the Sunday nation 24th July 2011.Professor Mutua, a man with enviable academic credentials in law decided to give his opinion on the basis of his preferences at the expense of making true references to the constitution. Professor Mutua presented the cv of his preferred candidate to the wrong audience. Article 33 of the constitution provides for freedom of expression. Section 2 of the article 33 of the constitution also states that freedom of expression does not extend to propaganda. The article reminds me of a phrase that the ‘right to be heard does not necessarily include the right to be taken serious’. In his piece, Prof Mutua wants the current Attorney General to be out of office with Godspeed which I consider a good idea but unnecessary. Unnecessary because the constitution already provides for the same; that Wako’s tenure officially expires on 27th of August and thus its expected that by the deadline, we will be having a new Attorney General to help speed up the reform process as provided for in the constitution. Prof Mutua with disregard to the constitution has abrogated himself the role of determining the procedure, short listing and finally selecting the person he thinks is best suited to be that Attorney General. He has gone ahead and even suggested that president Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga follow his procedure and eventually appoint Prof Mutua’s choice. That is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous in the sense that the constitution is already very clear on the requirements and procedure of appointing the Attorney General. What Prof Mutua should do is to advise his preferred candidate to present her CV to the appointing authority. The leadership of this country was elected based on people’s judgment and the powers given to any leader by the constitution cannot be usurped by mobs or people with vested interests. Article 156 section 2 of the constitution clearly states the process of appointing the Attorney General. The article states ‘the Attorney General shall be nominated by the president and with the approval of the national assembly, appointed by the president’. It’s our constitution that gives the president and the national assembly the role of appointing the Attorney General and that must be respected unless if we are advocates of anarchy. I am surprised that well trained lawyers want to push us into violating the constitution instead of playing a cardinal role in providing accurate constitutional civic education to correctly help ordinary Kenyans in interpretation and understanding of the same. The opinion leaders might be having diverse interests and wishes. It must be recognized that the national assembly was given a role in the appointing process because the members of parliament represent the electorate and the general Kenyan population. No one else can purport to be a more legitimate people’s representative than the parliamentarians who have direct mandate from the masses. Recently another debate came up from the same clique that the Attorney General should be a woman. I have gone through the constitution many times and I have not come across such a provision. They appear to be relying on the principle of having at least one third of every institution represented by women. This notion appears to be totally misguided because the Attorney General’s office only has one person and therefore the issue of gender doesn’t arise. Gender activists and other foreign interests have been in arms in advocating for this kind of arrangement. The person to be appointed the AG should be either gender as long as the person has integrity and with the best qualifications in respect to the constitutional requirements. The Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution, the Civil Society, legal scholars and all other stake holders should try as much as they can to help Kenyans in understanding the law instead of taking advantage of their credentials to mislead Kenyans. We also need to delink the process from the interests of international non governmental organisations whose interests are not necessarily in tandem with the ordinary Kenyan citizenry. The appointment of the Attorney General should be done according to the constitution because the constitution serves all of us as opposed to the NGOs that serve sectarian interests. It’s important that we uphold the rule of law under which sometimes we gain and sometimes loose so that others gain. That is what happens in a democracy. If we don’t adopt this principle, the country might start falling victim to a new dictatorship; a dictatorship of some egocentric civil society functionaries. Fwamba NC Fwamba Box 41046-00100 Nairobi +254721779445

By Benedict Wachira: Magoha must go…………….my experiences.

Today, Police are all over the University. The administration police have surrounded Kikuyu campus. The GSU are baying for innocent students’ blood, across the Kabetes. A combination of anti-riot, AP, and GSU police have cordoned off the statehouse road, and all they are waiting for is the whistle, the whistle to allow then to maim, maim male students. The whistle that allows them to rape, rape female students. And the whistle that will allow them to kill, kill anybody who runs away from them. The media, the Kenyan media, has decided to give the situation of national importance a total black out, or give a one sided story, on the turn of events. The media is trying to make this issue of national importance, to look like a simple politico-goonship story. The media wants to make the students look like barbarians, and that all they want is to stone cars and cause disruptions. The media is part of the problem. It all began in 2006. April, 2006. A group of former expelled students came to the University, they came as “revolutionaries” who had been kicked out because of fighting for students rights. They came and made promises, they came and excited students, they came and played with students’ emotions, but all they wanted to do was to fuck the students up. Unknown to the University Comrades, Magoha had made a deal with these returned expellees, a deal to help him steal money, a deal to help him stay on his seat for longer, and a deal, to feed them with the cramps that fell. In 2006, April, 2006, Magoha and his accomplices succeeded very well, and took almost all the executive posts. Come 2007, May, 4th, 2007, Magoha wanted more, he wanted a tribally balanced SONU. He wanted arse-lickers, who could do whatever he wanted. And he had prepared well for it. Very well indeed. In the course of 2006, he instigated for the changing of the SONU constitution, so that the outgoing office, would serve as the incoming electoral commission, this he did by: And I quote him “massaging the backs of the then student leaders.” Bribing through stealing from the students’ fund no longer had the common name of corruption, no, it now had been given a new name: Massage. Come May 4th, 2007 Susan Chege, won the chairperson’s seat with a landslide majority. But Magoha could not allow that. He wanted the chairperson’s seat to go to a person who understood how “The system works,” not a novice whom he could not trust. Furthermore, he wanted a tribally balanced SONU, and given that there was no Luo vying for the SecGen’s post, he had to get a Luo for the chairman’s post. This was against the wish of the majority of Luo students, who didn’t like Adinda, Magoha’s candidate, due to his poor performance as a sports secretary the previous year. Those who had tried to stop the rigging were instead beaten up by the riggers, and the University security. Not only was Adinda, a person who had been booed and dismissed all through his campaigns given the seat, but so was a whole lot of others students vying for other seats. We mobilized students to oppose those fake results and tension was all over the university. Even two former student leaders, the late Oulu GPO and Fwamba NC, could not just sit aside and watch, they came to our aid. The University students wanted to take to the streets, but we told them to wait. To wait until we tried out the other channels. We went to all the offices that one could think of, from the ministry of justice, to the ministry of education, from well known lawyers, to river road lawyers, we did letters to the University Council and we finally met the VC himself. All he did was plead with us, not to cause chaos in the University. He instead blamed the constitution. But what he seemingly could not remember was that HIS constitution (new) was never passed by an AGM, and it was thus ILLEGAL. All we wanted was a repeat election of the elections, with neutral electoral commissioners. The talks failed and we settled for our last option: Leading the students to the streets with two agenda only. 1. Magoha must go. 2. Yote yawezekana bila SONU. It was the only option that we had been left with, everybody else, the government, the Council, the Judiciary had given us a blind ear. Oblivious to some of us, Magoha had already begun clandestine talks with some of the people we were together with, and by the date of the demo, only three people had remained. Demoralized and disoriented. How did this happen? Was the only question in our minds. Magoha had proved that he was not only a master tribalist, but a master in the world of bribing. Some of the fellows had been given money, lots of money, others had been given imaginary posts, and others were merely threatened. (Here I can’t help but remember how I had a very progressive meeting with one Mr.Kibore, on how he would mobilize guys from Upper Kabete, drop with them in Chiromo, and head on to main campus. then 20minutes later, I meet Dann Mwangi, who shows me an sms from Kibore, who was already campaigning for the speaker’s post! A post that he had been assured of by Magoha himself!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,of which needless to say, he never got. ) *Interestingly, the same rigging tactics that were used by Magoha’s men, were the same rigging tactics that Kibaki used in the presidential elections later that year (lack of ballot papers in some areas, changing of results at the summation halls, the use of security persons to protect the riggmasters etc etc) But this was just the beginning of of Magoha’s successes. That year, millions of shillings were stolen, by the SONU leaders in conjunction with Magoha’s administration. By the way, the SONU leaders had given the stealing a nicer name: Jackpotting. Adinda had no decency whatsoever. His lowest point being when he led his goons to beat and maim around 60 Biomedical students, who had sought the University’s intervention for the recognition of their degree, by the Kenya Biomedics registration Board. Instead of the goons, who had used metal pipes and whips to beat up the peaceful and innocent young women and men from Upper Kabete being suspended and facing disciplinary action, it was the victims who were suspended, and some even expelled from the university. It was hence quite clear, who was behind all this. After a year of stealing, stealing and more stealing the elections were here again. This time round, I decided that I was not going to vie for the Secretary General’s post, but not under the conditions that were there. Comrade Amuke and I (and later joined by Onchari) formed the reformist movement. And our call was >>no reforms no elections<>No reforms no elections/SONU must go campaign<>No reforms, no elections/SONU must go