by BASHIR GOTH
PHOTO/Trending KE
Kenya’s historic Supreme Court decision nullifying a presidential election, the first in Africa, is a slap in the face of the priestly international observers who for so long remained the self-appointed custodians of democracy in Africa without whose verdict and blessings Africa couldn’t conduct a genuine election.
For as long as anyone can remember, it has been the western world dictating the norms of democracy to Africa and the rest of the world. No matter the efforts by these countries, the West’s imposing standards of democracy were nearly impossible to achieve. Especially when those standards required witnesses and results endorsed by international observers. But not anymore.
Watching Chief Justice David Maraga’s powerful opening statement during his announcement of the Supreme Court’s historic decision to invalidate the Kenyan presidential elections held on August 8 and his call for fresh elections in 60 days, I could not help but recall the words of one of Africa’s independence icons and Cold War martyrs, Patrice Lumumba.
In a letter from his prison cell to his son and by extension to Africa’s future generations, Lumumba said: “The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations. It will be the history which will be taught in the countries which have won freedom from colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.”
Vindicating Lumumba’s prognostic words, Maraga had perceptive words of his own: “The greatness of any nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution and adherence to the rule of law and above all the respect of God.”
This is not a statement by a pompous international observer or a western leader preaching to Africa about the virtues of democracy and the values of the rule of law, but the words of an African judge who changed the course of history in an African democratic process and turned the tables on the priestly role of international observers.
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