As we toast to our Jubilee Year, let’s reflect and act

By Donald B Kipkorir

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This is the last week of our 49th Year since gifted independence. On December 12, we shall usher in our 50th Year. Our Jubilee Year. Our 49th Year has been our Annus Horribilis. It has also been our Annus Mirabilis.

Let us start with the horrible parts. And they reverberate all the way from the heart of Africa.

In Central Africa Republic, her people are killing, raping and pillaging in the name of religion. The country has sunk into the abyss. French soldiers are assisting her to die with less pain.

In Kenya, the Samburu, Borana, Orma, Turkana and Pokot as its L’Enfant terrible, have taken us back to the 15th Century with cattle rustling, murder and scorched-earth policy.

This savage and primitive behaviour cannot be countenanced in this day and age. Our President has to declare such behaviour terrorism, and the participants be indicted alongside al-Shabaab.

And Safaricom, from its earnings of Sh107 billion, replaces the name of Moi International Sports Centre (MISC) with puny Sh55 million or 0.00051 per cent of the earnings. MISC is a national monument and its renaming cannot be sold for any price. La Scala Opera House in Milan, the Royal Opera House of London and the Bolshoi in Moscow, even in their worst of times, retain their names.

In America, monuments bearing the names of its past Presidents never get re-branded. MISC must get back its name.

It was also the year that the Judiciary, to which I belong by my daily profession, and the media, which I associate as a weekly columnist, wanted to change the goalposts of leadership from their bully pulpits. There are only three arms of Government; the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary with defined roles. They are said to be separate and independent, but the truth is that, the Executive as an elected arm, is numero uno in ranking.

The Judiciary cannot and can never preempt or railroad legislative work. Courts interpret the law and no more. Dark are the days when Judiciary and Media seek to supervise the Presidency.

But, it is time we celebrate our miracles and the future that beckons. Kenya has commenced unprecedented infrastructural developments. Recently, the President launched the expanded Mombasa berth 19, the new standard gauge Mombasa-Nairobi-Malaba Railway line and the Terminal 4 of JKIA. Some progressive Governors like Dr Alfred Mutua of Machakos are taking counties to new heights.

As we raise the national flag high on December 12, Kenya has no choice, but to forge ahead. The demons of the past have to be banished. The Bible says the Jubilee year is one to celebrate, to rest, to waive debts, to let the land heal, and to set the captive free. We have to lay a foundation that will take us for the next 49 years.

And to cap our week, Nelson Mandela decides to end his long goodbye and go join the celestial beings. Pharaohs of ancient Egypt died in order to be gods.

Mandela was a god while alive. His life showed us that one can be god without thinking he is God. His blue blood never gave him hubris. To him forgiveness was divine. He met and forgave, the widow of Henrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. He also met and forgave the diminutive Percy Yutar, who was the Prosecutor in Mandela’s long sentence.

As William Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar, the “ … heavens blaze the death of Princes.”

We have had our years of misfortune, bad leadership and lost opportunity. But we have also had good fortunes. Our state is not dismembered, we have never been hit by pestilence or famine of biblical proportion nor been invaded by foreigners. The choice is now ours, in one accord, to leave behind our Annus Horribilis, and welcome the Annus Mirabilis and that it lasts. We toast to our Jubilee Year.

— The writer is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya