Letter To My Dearly Beloved Son

 BY MUGAMBI KIAI My dearly beloved Son:Bravo! Kudos! Congratulations and felicitations. You are now the fourth president of the Republic of Kenya. O joy unbounded! Some gleefully declared that you would never make it; that it was impossible for another Kenyatta to ascend to Kenya’s presidency.

This was supposed to be complicated by the fact that you are facing a “personal challenge” in some court in a faraway land; like it is the first time world leaders will face charges of crimes against humanity.

This, in their view, was even further compounded by the fact that your predecessor, Mwai Kibaki, is Kikuyu and apparently, a Kikuyu cannot succeed another as President of Kenya.

Let me tell you a secret: this nonsensical talk of a Kikuyu not being able to succeed another did not start the other day. In 1977, for instance, when there were intense political paroxysms about my succession and there was a move to remove Daniel arap Moi from automatic succession as my vice-president, Kibaki himself “argued for the inevitability of Kenya being ruled from time to time by a non-Kikuyu.”

As you have vividly illustrated with your victory, it’s all porojo (nonsense). Remember a colonial governor called Patrick Renison calling me “the African leader to darkness and death”. Is Kenya dead? Is Kenya in darkness? (On this one my son, you may need to take a keen look at what Kenya Power have been up to since I hear that nowadays wananchi claim that they supply quick service however long it takes).

Indeed, it is porojo of such heightened magnitudes that it tops even the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. But today I am not writing to you to discuss the intellectual inadequacies, ineptitude and impotence of these naysayers – current or past. Nor, much as I should be, am I writing to gloat. I am writing because these long years have allowed me pause to reflect about things as they are and things as they could have been.

Here is my conundrum: it is often stated that “the per capita income in 1963 for Kenya was at around the Global average then. Today Kenya is recorded at $1,700 per capita income.

This is $9,000 below the world average of $10,700. The amount compared to Singapore and South Korea which were on the same level with Kenya [in] 1960 shows Singapore at $48,000 per capita and South Korea at $30,000.” What is it then, that Singaporeans and South Koreans did that we did not?

As you venture forth as the fourth President of Kenya, hence my son, pay attention to what my generation and successors did and should not have done, and what we did not do and should have done.

It will necessarily mean that you keenly, intensely and passionately review the evidence before you about our acts and omissions and compare and contrast it with what their narratives present; so that you can forge a new path which you, Uhuru, will follow and which will forever define you.By so doing will your name clearly, truly and resonantly echo in perpetuity as “freedom”.

So, as I joyously celebrate you, let me also in this peaceful stillness muse aloud at what could, should and would have been. Let us, for instance, examine the three K’s. The first two K’s are Kenya and Kenyatta.

 Eliud Mahihu, a former Provincial Commissioner who faithfully served me said that I told him in 1976, “As President of Kenya, “Kenya is me…” In Parliament in April 1968, my Attorney General Charles Njonjo would state:

 “Our most cherished institution is the Presidency and our most beloved citizen is the first holder of that office, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. No one…is more important to the peace and prosperity of our country than our President.”

 Observers and commentators from the 1970s confirm this. John Hatch commented that “It is true that this remarkable degree of unity centred almost entirely on the personality of Kenyatta.

 C. Legum noted that “The President has been the cornerstone of Kenya’s stability since independence.” Another report stated, “President Kenyatta…remains the father-figure of the country…Kenyans affectionately call him Mzee –the Old Man.”

 I clearly had an “overbearing” personal and political presence in Kenya; which would explain why historian Professor Ali Mazrui in 1969 would then describe it as an “imperial presidency”.

 Mahihu, the Provincial Commissioner at the Coast at the time of my death in Mombasa in August 1978, is reported to have told Njonjo on the phone when communicating news of my demise that, “The eyes of Kenya have closed.”

 So this is the foundational and fundamental question that should exercise itself, based on all this: is Kenya to be seen through the eyes of Kenyatta or is Kenyatta to be seen through the eyes of Kenya?

 The answer, I daresay my son, will determine whether Kenya will cross the Rubicon from a being a karatasi (paper) democracy to being a katiba (constitutional) democracy.

 Which brings me to the third K: Katiba (the constitution) – it has been reported how my personal confidant Mbiyu Koinange “appeared to ignore such merely superstructural arrangements such as…the constitution of the Republic.”

 There was clearly a very pedestrian and casual appreciation and treatment of the katiba in my time. Look at how, for instance, we could cart away into detention without trial Jean Marie Seroney and Martin Shikuku for saying in Parliament that the ruling Kanu party was dead; despite what should have been parliamentary privilege and immunity protecting them.

 Also see how we could amend the katiba to hand me powers to forgive convicted election offenders just after my great friend and co-detainee Paul Ngei had been found guilty of election offenses in the 1974 general elections.

 Former newspaper editor and my former private secretary, George Githii, aptly captured in a speech in June 1976 what will be my parting words, for now, to you: “…the people of this country have chosen the rule of law and the constitution…[as] the only salvation for this country….we must make it a point that the constitution is not changed at any time because of expediency…That document must not be tampered with every week; it [is] a document with a statement of principles which are valid for all times…”

Mugambi Kiai is the Kenya Program Manager at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA). The views expressed in this column are entirely his and not OSIEA’s.