Uhuru and Ruto wouldn’t lie to us, would they?

By KWENDO OPANGA

Posted  Saturday, April 27   2013

IN SUMMARY

• A Deputy President is powerful, but should not Mr Kenyatta now begin to have the last word as President? No, it is not the Constitution. Mr Kenyatta is President and must be President. He must take the lead at all times and must own the decisions he takes because the buck stops with the President.

Former WWF wrestler Jesse Ventura, also a former Governor of the US state of Minnesota, has a brilliant one liner that he likes and which I admire.

He will conclude an interview with a television pundit by rhetorically asking thus: “They are all politicians; they wouldn’t lie to us, would they?”

President Uhuru Kenyatta was emphatic, and not once, that there would be no politicians in the Cabinet. Deputy President William Ruto repeated this, telling us that there would be only two politicians in the Cabinet – he and the President. And that was on Wednesday.

On Thursday, bright and early, the President and Deputy President duly nominated 61-year-old Kitui political warhorse and failed senatorial candidate Charity Ngilu to the Cabinet. They did better; they nominated her to the pivotal Lands, Housing and Urban Development docket.

They were not done. In came Mr Najib Balala, another failed senatorial candidate who previously held the plum and widely coveted Tourism portfolio. Mrs Ngilu and Mr Balala were the point people for the triumphant Jubilee Coalition in the rival Coalition for Reform and Democracy-dominated Ukambani and Coast regions.

Now, the President and Deputy President changed tune. Mrs Ngilu and Mr Balala are now not politicians. Because the General Election ended on March 4, they are done and finished with politics and must now turn to serving the people of Kenya. If that is the case, then the President and Deputy President are no longer politicians because of the same reason. And the same would be true for all MPs, governors, senators, women’s representatives and county assembly representatives.

If you believe the President and Deputy President on the matter of politicians and the Cabinet, then, you deserve a hole in the head.

When the two were denying they were delaying naming the Cabinet because there were disagreements between them, they were, indeed, split on the matter of whether or not they should bring politicians on board.

When Mr Ruto was telling us that only he and the President would be the politicians in the Cabinet, he may have been trying to use that public forum to force the President’s hand. When the President said there would be no politicians in the Cabinet, he knew he was under increasing pressure to bring into the Cabinet those who ran on Jubilee tickets and lost!

But does the fact that the majority of our Cabinet Secretaries are not practising politicians mean that politics will be shut out of running government and the business of government? Put another way, how independent will the Cabinet Secretaries be of the nominating authorities called President and Deputy President?

If the President and Deputy President will want to dominate those they nominated because they nominated them and therefore are owed a living, then it will be politics as usual.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto must keep politics, especially pork politics, out of the Cabinet. Will they? Mrs Ngilu is the pied piper of pork politics. Will she not want to take the pork home?

Will Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, who entered a 50-50 government seat sharing pre-election agreement, not expect their nominees for the various government positions to bring nusu mkate and nusu mkeka home? Even more importantly will they not want them to recognise them as their benefactors?

Listen, the construction of a Cabinet mirrors the politics of the land. Jubilee won the General Election. Jubilee is Mr Uhuru and Mr Ruto. Jubilee nominees, therefore, dominate the Cabinet list. Coast and Ukambani turned their backs on Mr Balala and Mrs Ngilu and the President has responded with a back handed compliment. Former President Moi must be proud of his protégé.

But give credit where it is due. We saw the beauty of our Constitution and it can only get better because it is not perfect. Thanks to the Constitution, there are a record six women nominees so far among 16 and they are multi-talented thinkers with proven records of performance.

Thanks to the Constitution the nominees will be vetted by Parliament and public. As George Bush the elder would have said, you have to level up with the Kenyan people.

But, good people, did we, thanks to the Constitution, get two presidents for the price of one?

A Deputy President is powerful, but should not Mr Kenyatta now begin to have the last word as President? No, it is not the Constitution. Mr Kenyatta is President and must be President. He must take the lead at all times and must own the decisions he takes because the buck stops with the President.

Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant opanga@diplomateastafrica.co
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