Tirade against Waiguru's is all smear politics

NAIROBI: In the week ending June 28, three articles were published in The Standard newspaper that made a series of unsubstantiated allegations on the National Youth Programme as well as a key Government ministry.

The first article was by CORD Senator Anyang Nyong’o, which literally suggested that the NYS; a programme that has been supported by basically every government since Kenya came into existence, including the Grand Coalition one in which he served as minister; and whose graduates the Professor of Political Science has taught at various points of his career as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, is a militia.

The instinctive reaction to such a ridiculous assertion is to simply ignore it as political noise. But prudence dictates otherwise. The senator for Kisumu County served as ODM Secretary-General for many years.

One of the indelible marks of his tenure was the well-planned and ultimately well-executed interruption of internal party polls in March 2014 by his party’s ‘Men-In-Black’ militia.

This represented a party sabotage of internal democratic processes by crude misuse of young people.

One then begins to suspect that what Prof Nyong’o is trying to do is to clean ODM’s own militia history with the suggestion that Jubilee has set up its own militia as well.

The second article was by Edwin Sifuna, an advocate who has appeared on national media supporting or defending the ODM party positions at different times in the past.

Mr Sifuna alleged that the Devolution Cabinet Secretary was running a public relations campaign to limit the damage caused after the media ‘uncovered’ a plot to commit some wrongs in NYS.

Mr Sifuna completely ignored the fact that Anne Waiguru had already flagged the issue and asked for investigations to be carried out on the anomalies she raised way before the media ‘broke’ the story.

However, comments attributed to yet another CORD MP, Nicholas Gumbo, who suggested that there was no justification in paying youth what he called a ‘pittance’ to clear trenches and drainages, are what take the cake.

The Rarieda MP’s view (and one that is unfortunately shared across the entire Opposition in general) shows they have failed to grasp the model being used by the revamped NYS.

In this programme, youth are engaged in community regeneration programmes, based on models that other countries across the world have used to include young people in developing their local communities as they learn valuable skills for subsequent employment.

Such models include the ‘New Deal’ that was effected in the USA in the 1930s, but then again Mr Gumbo’s understanding of these matters might not be that deep or well researched.

One also fails to understand how Mr Gumbo would call the Sh470-a-day that the close to 4,000 young people working in Kibera, for example, a pittance.

Whereas it does not in any way compare to the kind of monies the Honourable Member of Parliament for Rarieda Constituency earns, it certainly is not a pittance.

We wonder how many young people Mr Gumbo has employed and how much he pays them.

We also wonder whether he understands the value of the skills and training the young people are receiving.

In fact, Mr Gumbo’s statement indicates those slandering the programme do not understand how tapping into Kenya’s largest demographic group helps in reduction of crime, provision of opportunities for youth to gain new skills and build disposable income, and the development of new markets — all of which help develop the national economy inclusively.

Then of course there was the outcry by Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claimed the President was shielding Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru from punishment for suspected corruption, while allowing other Cabinet secretaries to be punished without his protection for similar allegations.

Unfortunately what the former Prime Minister failed to grasp in his haste to benefit from what he assumed would be a political fallout from regions where other Cabinet secretaries had stepped aside, is that what we are seeing in the Devolution and Planning ministry is attempted fraud in a government institution under the ministry that the minister herself sought police investigations even before the public got to learn about it.

But of course, facts should never be allowed to stand in the way of a good story as far as the Opposition leader is concerned.

Our arguments above reflect the difficulty of tackling issues like corruption, or insecurity, in a country made up of an Opposition who see every national challenge as an opportunity to earn political points against Government.

It is about time that CORD accepted that on some issues it is more important to get a solution that works, than to make Government look bad.

Fortunately, in this case, the CORD approach has been counter-productive.