What a dizzying swing from jubilation to tribulation!

By Ababu Namwamba
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It is not raining in the house of Jubilee. It is pouring! In nine short months, the mood has dizzyingly swung from jubilation to tribulation, as the UhuRuto duo increasingly seem more dramatic than dynamic. I can figure at least four reasons for this unfolding tower-of-babel affliction for the jubilants turned tribulants.

One, the incredible bungling across government is a pointer to unpreparedness to govern. Jubilee pulled all stops to take power, but apparently forgot to prepare to run the country. The unprecedented insecurity remains the most striking manifestation of how badly Jubilee has taken to the challenge of governing; and of course Mission-Impossible-Westgate will forever remain a chilling lesson on how not to conduct a security operation.

The fumbling over the horrific carnage on our roads, and the juvenile comedy of errors with recent appointments tell a tale of a regime truly at sea in managing affairs of state. It may just be plain incompetence. Or it could well be that Jubilee never expected to win, and a stunning surprise simply turned nightmarish. Unexpected fortune can throw up some strange actions.

Two, the very foundations of Jubilee were predicated on the quicksand of emotional propaganda. The propaganda of fulani betrayed our “heroes” to a foreign court. That fulani evicted our people from some forest. That fulani is vindictive and analogue. It was a spin masterstroke straight from the rulebook of Josef Goebbels, deception master for Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. It was Goebbels’ simple thesis that a lie repeated often enough ultimately takes on the veneer of truth.

Tragedy is that while you may lie to some people sometimes, you cannot lie to all the people all the time; and whereas you can bamboozle and hypnotise people with damsel-in-distress tales in the short term, the effect is bound to wear off. As taught by Mahatma Gandhi, “a lie does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become lie because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.” As it becomes clear who actually fixed who. As it emerges that Jubilee is in fact “I believe in ku-say digital na ku-do analogue”, things cannot help but unravel. Spectacularly so.

Three, it is clear that Jubilee’s pursuit of power was never about Kenya. They would not, otherwise, go to such astonishing limits to turn what was deceptively described as a personal challenge into a millstone around our 40 million necks, gravely compromising national interests in the process. It was never about youth and gender empowerment, as proven by tired retired septuagenarians taking plum jobs at the expense of energetic jobless youth, with women contending with historical tokenism. It was never about national unity or interests.

Tribalism has been raised to epochal levels by the unprecedented two-tribe rapacity, while all communities pay taxes. It is so tragically hilarious to see President Uhuru posturing in Juba, modeling “Kenyan cohesion”, while Marsabit burns, and Kenya remains more fractured than ever before. Shouldn’t charity begin at home, Mr President?

Four, Jubilee is very much a reincarnation of Kanu, and has indeed demonstrated intentions of returning Kenya to the bad manners, ways and horrors of the Nyayo state. Little surprise that we are witnessing a frightening frontal assault on the rule of law; a cynical attempt to revert to the rule of the big man, where presidential whim overrides constitutional dint. Retrogressive laws are routinely being rammed through Parliament, which is at risk of being reduced to an arena for parochial pomposity.

Illegal public appointments are being made with barely concealed contempt for procedure. Merit and the broader public good have given way to cheap jingoism. You hear no less a personality than the Deputy President casually brushing aside these felonious actions and you realise what a cavalier attitude pervades the Jubilee sanctum of power.

Trouble is that unlike in the loose-cannon-ball dark days of yester years, the paradigm has shifted to a dispensation that demands fidelity to the rule of law; where the president’s actions, like Caesar’s wife, must be accountable and beyond reproach.