Opinion: JSC should give President Kenyatta a break

Just this week, an institution calling itself the Judicial Service Commission dared challenge His Excellency, the Honourable Uhuru Kenyatta, C.G.H, President and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces of the Republic of Kenya, merely because he had said Chief Justice David Maraga is an eminent son of the land of Omogusii.

The JSC was frothing at the mouth, trying to remind the President that he had no meaningful role in the appointment of the CJ and that he should simply do his politics without dragging in Maraga’s name.

Permit me to ask, who is the JSC to challenge the head of state?

Is there anyone in its ranks that is the son or daughter of a former president? And why should they brandish the constitution in president’s face as if it were a piece of meat?

These people simply want to spoil the party for the president at a joyous period when the whole nation in celebrating the historic development record of the Jubilee government.

DEVELOPMENT RECORD

How else can you explain the fact that these idlers chose to chide the president just when he was outlining countless achievements that have made him the envy of many an African president?

If you have built Africa’s cheapest and most modern railway project, you have schools overflowing with laptops, you have electricity even in grass-thatched houses, you have tamed the dreaded dragon of corruption to the point it is now a national pastime, why should anyone focus on such mundane things as the constitution?

Why should they ignore the fact that Kenya is now more united than ever?

Why not laud the Kenyan camaraderie that is there for all to see even on social media?

Who has not noticed that an erstwhile rare delicacy such as chapati that was once the preserve of the rich and famous is now cheaper than Ugali?
But this is not the first time the JSC and the courts are choosing to embarrass our beloved president.

Just last year, they snubbed the president when he simply wanted to have a big say in choosing the new Chief Justice.

The amendment of the Judicial Service Act would have given him the power to hire the Chief Justice from a prescribed list of nominees.

That would have easily settled the current argument about whether he is the one who appointed Justice Maraga or not.

But lo and behold, five judges, Isaac Lenaola, Mumbi Ngugi, Joseph Onguto, Weldon Korir and Richard Mwongo in total disregard of the president’s feelings took away these new powers.

Before then, Justice Onguto had the temerity to declare the president’s cabinet unconstitutional simply because it did not have enough women.

Is it the president’s fault when women in his cabinet choose to take doctors’ advice to go for lighter duties?

In fact, the president’s critics have even faulted him for seeking to circumvent parliament in the deployment of Kenya Defence Forces within Kenya.

And they too are citing the constitution. But honestly, who would want to subject such a routine decision to 350 people?

Doesn’t parliament have enough work to do instead of poring through the pages of the constitution just to find fault with the president?

Now everybody has picked the cue and is challenging the president left right and centre about the constitution.

They claim the president has not read the constitution. If the president does not want or has not found time to read the constitution, what is wrong with that?

Everybody chooses what they want to read when they want to read it!

The president doesn’t go around telling Kenyans what to read. Why should it be different for him?

Remember when we were wondering what he does with the useless newspapers that hit the streets everyday?

He calmly explained to the nation that he uses it to wrap meat, a perfectly legitimate use for paper.

As a country we must accept the fact we cannot expect our president to read every piece of writing he comes across. He is a busy man and he has a whole country to run.

Debt burden

I am sure many of these people who have made the president their punching bag will now start talking about the country’s national debt, just because each one of us owes someone out there a paltry Sh59,000.

But only the unschooled will argue with the fact that every child that is born in Kenya ought to be responsible.

And placing a little personal allocation of the debt on each of their heads can only be the noble thing to do.

After all who has not seen the shine upon the land since these billions started flowing into Kenya?