Akombe’s legacy is a building block for democracy, integrity

Dr Roselyn Akombe, the senior UN official and former IEBC Commissioner, has a legacy etched in stone. Even if Dr Akombe does nothing else of significance in life – and I am sure she will continue to climb the ladder of stardom – her legacy is secure.

That’s because she’s done what very few Kenyans have ever done – refuse to be corrupted and pillage the state in self-aggrandizement. Instead, Dr Akombe did the hard thing.

She looked the lords of corruption and impunity in the eye and told them to go jump into a lake. She wasn’t for sale. Even under threat of deadly harm to her and family, she refused to blink. Let’s interrogate what her historic actions mean.

It’s now clear why Dr Akombe left. Her report to embattled IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati exposed the rot in the electoral agency. It’s a den of thieves and a snake pit of malignant characters. She pulled no punches.

When she left the country under duress, those whose corrupt advances she spurned tried to weave a yarn to besmirch her reputation.

Ambassador Kamau Macharia, then Kenya’s Permanent Representative at the UN – a man possessed with self-regard the size of Mount Everest – tried to wreck her UN career.

It was all for naught because she’s an impeccable civil servant. As the Buddha said, “[T]hree things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Dr Akombe is the truth.

I know Dr Akombe has her detractors. Let’s dispense with them before I tell you why her legacy is so important for a young democracy like Kenya.

Her haters fall into two categories which often intersect. The first is made of Jubilee sycophants and tribal bigots to whom Jubilee can’t do wrong. The second is composed of the corrupt who don’t understand why Dr Akombe has no price.

The former is a sad lot and a clear and present danger to democracy. The latter is the majority in the middle class who thrive on corruption as a way of life. This group supports, and benefits from the largesse of, the lords of corruption and impunity. They are Siamese twins.

Let’s contemplate Dr Akombe’s legacy. First, her principled resignation from the IEBC – walking away from a job many coveted – speaks to her sense of integrity.

It was clear to all and sundry that she was the only competent commissioner at the IEBC. She is an international expert on elections. That’s her job description at the UN. Virtually all other commissioners were at sea, including Chair Chebukati.

They had been put on the IEBC as tools for politicians. Someone obviously made a mistake if they thought Dr Akombe would be their lapdog. It didn’t take Dr Akombe long to realise that the IEBC wasn’t an independent body as prescribed in the Constitution, but the handmaiden of Jubilee factions.

Dr Akombe didn’t simply throw in the towel once she realised IEBC was compromised. She worked like hell to salvage it. She tried to give Mr Chebukati a backbone but nothing could work short of a surgical transplant.

She tried to drum sense into the factionalised commissioners by appealing to their professionalism and sense of patriotism. Her entreaties fell on deaf ears.

The die had long been cast as it seemed most of the commissioners had been bought. At least that must have been Dr Akombe’s conclusion otherwise why would she have resigned?

So, she didn’t flee at the first sight of trouble. She stood and valiantly fought until her position became completely and utterly untenable.

Secondly, Dr Akombe’s legacy tells us that we don’t have to be corrupt to be public servants, or succumb to the temptations of looted taxpayer shillings.

There are reports that she was offered money to make certain decisions, or go along, as they say. She would have none of it.

Instead, she insisted that the IEBC do its job as an independent body free of corrupt influences. Most Kenyans in her shoes simply take the dole, shut up, and do what they are told.

That’s why civil servants with meager salaries can buy mansions, establish businesses, and send their kids to expensive schools in America. It’s these corrupt and spineless public servants who’ve stolen our present and future.

Finally, Dr Akombe’s legacy is a building block for our democracy. Democracy cannot grow sans the truth. It can’t germinate on sterile soil planted with the seeds of corruption. Weeds grow there and choke off any valuable vegetation.

Civil servants like Dr Akombe are the pillars of the rule of law, the indispensable factor in a democracy. Great constitutions don’t execute themselves. Independent bodies don’t run themselves.

They need public servants with a sense of public shame, unbending professionalism, and integrity. That’s Dr Akombe’s enduring legacy for Kenya.

- The writer is SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of KHRC.  @makaumutua