By Lucy Oriang’, Daily Nation on the Web
Opinion
Nairobi — The resounding rejection of the reappointment of Mr Justice Aaron Ringera to the top job at the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission is probably one of the finest moments of this Parliament. But how long will the honeymoon last?
Given the capricious nature of our MPs, I am inclined to approach the presidential snub with cautious optimism. It would be mean-spirited to deny the 86 MPs who stood for the principled way of doing things their day in the sun, but this is Kenya — and tomorrow we might see a slew of political rallies that take us back to Square A.
But let’s allow ourselves to enjoy, for one rich and relatively rare moment, the evidence that right can rise above partisan interests.
Careers may well have been made as the debate went into overdrive beyond official hours. Who would have thought that the relatively quiet nominated MP Amina Abdalla would be the one to lead the charge on this vexing issue?
As we watched the debate unfold, several friends confided that they were having second thoughts about Martha Karua and they were thinking that she might just be The One for the top job come 2012. I don’t want to go there myself. A day is a long time in politics and three years can be a lifetime.
For me, the icing on the cake was the triumph of the possibility of change and the hope that this nation, which has been politically defiled so systematically almost since the beginning, might finally live up to its promise.
Now that our MPs have reconnected with their conscience — I am assuming that the 90 who did not take part were either away or were just being diplomatic — they must ask themselves hard questions.
Starting with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga, many of them fought tooth and nail, using means fair and foul, to get the power they craved. But what did they really want to do with that power once they had it safely under lock and key?
For the past month or so, we have been subjected to tension and nasty exchanges that need never have happened in the first place. The wise Father of the Nation, as we used to call the man in the top seat in the old days, rules not by decree but by persuasion.
He derives his power from fulfilling the wishes and desires of his people, not by marching to his own beat regardless of the reservations of long-suffering citizens. The soft underbelly of this nation has been exposed once again with this drama, and the question is what we are going to do about it.
The traditional approach will be to engage in serious tribal stone-throwing. Rallies will be summoned every weekend, the cry predictable. Our people are being persecuted, we will be told. There will be demands for compensation for choosing a path that can only lead to self-destruction.
And we will clap hard as our purported leaders haggle as if they and “our people” will be exempt from the disastrous effects of today’s political nonsense. The hounds from hell will retreat to their tribal strongholds to declare that their people are being finished. The tribe will roar back in approval.
Are we hearing public confessions, then, that government officials are recruited, not because of their professional skills, but because of an accident of birth? The last time I checked, letters of offer for these lucrative jobs bore the stamp of the Government of Kenya, not tribal fiefdoms.