uhuru should resign or be removed through civil disobedience

BY HENRY MAKORI

This article was first published on a Kenyan Newspaper website (The Star) and later pulled down. Insurrectionist has agreed to republish it here at the author’s request, as we are committed to providing a platform for uncensored critique of East African dictators. The Author and editor are now receiving intense threats from the government because of this article.

Kenya is now a dictatorship. President Uhuru Kenyatta has lost the legitimacy to govern. He is unfit to hold office. He is ruling the country against the will of the people as expressed in the Constitution.

In these circumstances, it becomes impossible for citizens to feel obligated to respect Uhuru Kenyatta as the President of the Republic of Kenya. 

Why? Because the courts have ruled that Uhuru has overthrown the Constitution and desecrated the highest office in the land. He has violated his oath of office, betrayed public trust and gravely abused his authority. 

If the Head of State has no respect for the Constitution that creates the office he holds and that defines its powers - the supreme law embodying the will of the Kenyan people he swore to uphold, preserve and protect – why should he remain in office?

Retired Chief Justice Willy Mutunga said on Tuesday that Uhuru’s “blithe breaches to the Constitution” […] “are intentional, persistent, defiant and brazen – fuelled by an inexplicable determination to overrun the barricades of Kenya’s constitutional order”.

That is the definition of a dictator. Three options are available to Kenyans in the face of this searing indictment of their rogue Head of State. One, Uhuru should resign and, with his head bowed in shame, disappear into the mists of history. 

After Uhuru for the umpteenth time violated the Constitution by appointing and swearing in 34 judges instead of the 40 recommended by the Judicial Service Commission, two retired chief justices Mutunga and David Maraga told him to resign.

But dictators don’t resign. The second option is, Parliament should impeach Uhuru. But he and his cronies control the so-called “august” House. Parliament itself is illegitimate because it is not properly constituted. Maraga issued Uhuru with an advisory to dissolve the House for its failure to implement the two-thirds gender rule. He ignored it.

That leaves Kenyans with only the third option, namely, to exercise their sovereignty directly by embarking on a vigorous campaign of civil disobedience to force Uhuru out of State House. 

Can unrelenting civil disobedience remove Uhuru? With former Opposition leader Raila Odinga in his pocket, Uhuru is confident no one can mobilise Kenyans on a national scale to unseat him. “The opposition in this country has died. That is what has given the President the audacity to do what he wants,” Maraga said on Wednesday. 

Raila, through the handshake, committed the greatest political fraud against Kenyans. The turncoat’s single act of betrayal demobilised progressive forces fighting against misrule and legitimised Uhuru’s regime. ODM politicians and the rank and file are now Uhuru’s top cheerleaders. They hope he will reciprocate by making Raila his successor.

But buying Raila and his “cows” is false comfort for Uhuru. Without a credible Opposition, the country is on dangerous grounds as political conflicts could end up on the streets. The people’s only recourse is to confront the dictatorship head on.

That is the story of the popular uprisings that overthrew Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (2011), Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaoré (2014), Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan (2019).

Could Uhuru be deliberately provoking similar nationwide anarchy as an excuse to unleash state terror, declare a state of emergency and extend his rule by military force?

His current strategy seems to concentrate on two areas that could potentially resist his dictatorship: 1) the military and 2) the Luo nation. Uhuru has no solid backing in his Mt Kenya backyard or anywhere else in the country to count on.

His increasingly autocratic bent has a definite pattern. Look at how he has systematically cowed independent institutions in and outside government: Parliament, constitutional commissions, the Judiciary, previously outspoken religious groups, civil society, labour unions and the media.

They have been intimidated, co-opted through appointment of pliant bosses to head them or silenced via budgets cuts and threats. The High Court on Thursday declared as unconstitutional Executive Order Number 1 of 2020 through which Uhuru placed the Judiciary, tribunals, commissions and independent offices under the Executive. 

He is wooing the military by involving soldiers in civilian affairs. They run part of the Nairobi county government and the Kenya Meat Commission, despite a court order declaring the KMC transfer illegal.

Kenyans must now invoke their direct sovereignty, mobilise and remove Uhuru through sustained civil disobedience.