Posted Monday, April 8, 2013 | By MACHARIA GAITHO
There’s a new sheriff in town. That might be the
message from President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto as
they take office on Tuesday.
The two campaigned on the theme of generational change and the leap towards a digital future. We can expect at the inauguration festivities alone new ideas and fresh approaches.
The new President is already well-practised with the teleprompter and has displayed an affinity for ideas picked up from the American political podium.
The staid old protocol planners at the Office of the President still stuck in the old routine of military parades, traditional dancers, endless choirs and even lengthier and boring speeches are probably already shell-shocked.
They have had to accommodate the entry of professional event planners from Team Uhuru infusing into the programme acts that are a little more hip.
How the Mwomboko dancers gel with the local hip-hop wannabes remains to be seen, but ultimately the change of guard is not just about razzmatazz.
When President Kibaki succeeded President Moi a decade ago, I hoped on these pages that we were witnessing real change from the despotic kleptocracy, and not just exchanging one set of thieves for another.
I would raise exactly the same caution as President Kenyatta Mark II takes over from President Kibaki. The latter, with all his faults, was a great improvement on President Moi, but still given to autocratic tendencies and winking at corruption in his inner circles.
President Moi, in turn, would have been a vast improvement on President Kenyatta I, save for the unbridled corruption and human rights abuses.
We need to see whether the younger Kenyatta will emulate any of his three predecessors. Or if he will keep his promise of a sea change in the way Kenya is governed.
My instincts tell me that President Kenyatta will be naturally attuned to charting brave new directions, and he will be desperate to prove that he is his own man not aiming to rewind time to a dirty, corrupt, despotic past.
In walking away from the Kanu of his father and Moi; and snubbing the Kibaki connection to found and fund his own party and presidential campaign, the fellow demonstrated that he has come of age.
However, he has not quite severed the umbilical cord that binds him to a discredited past.
There are far too many shadowy characters in his entourage who, if not in jail, should belong to the dustbins of history.
Right now the most rabid ethnic chauvinists are chest-thumping all over town making sure everybody knows they are headed for permanent residency at State House. That they will never again make the mistake of letting a “passing cloud”, as they used to say of one Mr Moi so many years ago, have a moment on the throne.
The motorcycle outriders are now on the right side of the River Chania, and untold wealth beckons from Anglo-Leasing and Goldenberg–type scandals for those on the right side.
I suppose in Kenya anybody making a serious stab at the presidency must get to bed with moneyed thieves. President Kibaki did it, and so did Jubilee’s vanquished opponent, Mr Raila Odinga.
If President Kenyatta wants to be taken seriously as the unifier, healer and leader into a brave new dispensation, then he must speedily jettison from his entourage the detritus of the past.
He must become the leader of one Kenya for all Kenyans; not a small, insular clique.
President Kenyatta, by nature, is fun-loving, easy-going, generous and open; not cursed with the hang-ups, vanity and sense of entitlement that enslaves many in his circles.
He will do much better if he moves forward with what comes naturally to him and ignores what might hold him back.
As President, he must open up and run a transparent State House that is not the redoubt of wheeler-dealers.
And, a final piece of unsolicited advice to my President: Reduce the size of that monstrous motorcade, and send your security detail and political minders for lessons in common courtesy and good manners.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com
The two campaigned on the theme of generational change and the leap towards a digital future. We can expect at the inauguration festivities alone new ideas and fresh approaches.
The new President is already well-practised with the teleprompter and has displayed an affinity for ideas picked up from the American political podium.
The staid old protocol planners at the Office of the President still stuck in the old routine of military parades, traditional dancers, endless choirs and even lengthier and boring speeches are probably already shell-shocked.
They have had to accommodate the entry of professional event planners from Team Uhuru infusing into the programme acts that are a little more hip.
How the Mwomboko dancers gel with the local hip-hop wannabes remains to be seen, but ultimately the change of guard is not just about razzmatazz.
When President Kibaki succeeded President Moi a decade ago, I hoped on these pages that we were witnessing real change from the despotic kleptocracy, and not just exchanging one set of thieves for another.
I would raise exactly the same caution as President Kenyatta Mark II takes over from President Kibaki. The latter, with all his faults, was a great improvement on President Moi, but still given to autocratic tendencies and winking at corruption in his inner circles.
President Moi, in turn, would have been a vast improvement on President Kenyatta I, save for the unbridled corruption and human rights abuses.
We need to see whether the younger Kenyatta will emulate any of his three predecessors. Or if he will keep his promise of a sea change in the way Kenya is governed.
My instincts tell me that President Kenyatta will be naturally attuned to charting brave new directions, and he will be desperate to prove that he is his own man not aiming to rewind time to a dirty, corrupt, despotic past.
In walking away from the Kanu of his father and Moi; and snubbing the Kibaki connection to found and fund his own party and presidential campaign, the fellow demonstrated that he has come of age.
However, he has not quite severed the umbilical cord that binds him to a discredited past.
There are far too many shadowy characters in his entourage who, if not in jail, should belong to the dustbins of history.
Right now the most rabid ethnic chauvinists are chest-thumping all over town making sure everybody knows they are headed for permanent residency at State House. That they will never again make the mistake of letting a “passing cloud”, as they used to say of one Mr Moi so many years ago, have a moment on the throne.
The motorcycle outriders are now on the right side of the River Chania, and untold wealth beckons from Anglo-Leasing and Goldenberg–type scandals for those on the right side.
I suppose in Kenya anybody making a serious stab at the presidency must get to bed with moneyed thieves. President Kibaki did it, and so did Jubilee’s vanquished opponent, Mr Raila Odinga.
If President Kenyatta wants to be taken seriously as the unifier, healer and leader into a brave new dispensation, then he must speedily jettison from his entourage the detritus of the past.
He must become the leader of one Kenya for all Kenyans; not a small, insular clique.
President Kenyatta, by nature, is fun-loving, easy-going, generous and open; not cursed with the hang-ups, vanity and sense of entitlement that enslaves many in his circles.
He will do much better if he moves forward with what comes naturally to him and ignores what might hold him back.
As President, he must open up and run a transparent State House that is not the redoubt of wheeler-dealers.
And, a final piece of unsolicited advice to my President: Reduce the size of that monstrous motorcade, and send your security detail and political minders for lessons in common courtesy and good manners.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com
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