AN OPEN LETTER TO HON. MARTHA WANGARI KARUA, EGH, M.P.

My heroine, the indefatigable Minister for Justice, Constitutional Affairs and National Cohesion, Hon. Martha Wangari Karua wants to be president and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya. Is hers a serious bid for the presidency or just another gush of hot air? I am unable to refrain from offering her my 50 cent worth of advice because I fear to mourn the loss of a promising political leader.

Waziri, you have an inalienable democratic right to aspire and vie for any public office in Kenya. Having represented the people of Gichugu in parliament for the last 16 years and held high profile jobs in the government and political parties, you have the right credentials to aspire to the position of Commander-in Chief. As the current chairperson of NARC-Kenya, you have a head start as the primus-inter-pares among the leaders aspiring to inherit President Mwai Kibaki’s perceived political mantle in the PNU coalition.

Defying State House on the subject of dissolving PNU constituent parties has bolstered and reaffirmed your image and characteristic aura of political independence. You should completely ignore President Kibaki on this matter and pay little attention to the busy bodies in PNU. The president is not a political animal and is unlikely to play any major role in the 2012 elections. President Kibaki is not and has never been a serious political party ideologue or mobiliser. You and his other friends hurriedly cobbled up PNU just to save him from being party-less in September last year. It is his disdain for party politics that led to the collapse of the original NARC, rendered his DP a moribund outfit and created the House of Babel that is PNU. Not even the president’s sudden interest in and ascension to the leadership of PNU can salvage the coalition. The president has no vehicle for political mobilisation or a grassroots machinery of his own; and hence no political fortune or mantle to bequeath to anybody. If anything, the entire Mt. Kenya region is littered with political orphans of his former parties with no evident possible heir of note in sight. Politicians who are hinging their survival on President Kibaki after 2012 are simply suffering a bout of collective amnesia and busy writing their political epitaphs.

Waziri, charity (even in politics) begins at home. Avoid attacking the Deputy Premier Hon. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Security Minister, Hon George Muthengi Saitoti. Doing so does not endear you to a lot of people in southern Kikuyu land. If anything your thinly veiled attacks against the duo is slowly rekindling the old wounds and fault lines (the fabled Chania River divide) between the north and southern Kikuyu. Take this matter seriously since you do not have any serious cheer-leaders outside Kirinyaga District and as we speak, NARC- Kenya has lost the support of most sitting MPs in the larger Nyeri, Laikipia and Nyandarua Districts. Your only saving grace here is that your defiance against the president and the “big-moneyed elitist minority” wheeler dealers resonates well with the majority of the young people in Mt. Kenya region who are tired of the old order and the current status quo. Get a young energetic party ideologue to harness the political support of the youth and you will pull the rug under your detractors in Central Kenya.

Outside Central Kenya, some people view you as a rouble rousing, inveterate kikuyu chauvinist. You need to re-brand and modify this image through your most visible allies Hon. MPs Dr. Mohamed Kuti, Danson Buya Mungatana (my former college mate), Katoo Ole Metito, Asman Kamama Abongotum and Robinson Njeru Githae. Spend much more time creating grassroots machinery for NARC-Kenya. The party needs serious, credible, and clearly visible grounds-men. You need to organise and open well managed party branches in every constituency to create alternative centres of power, disorganise and scatter sitting MPs and set a foothold in every corner of Kenya.

Whereas you have impeccable credentials in the fight for democracy, civil and political liberties, you have not championed the fight for social, economic and judicial reforms in similar fashion. Poor and unrepresented litigants rarely access substantive justice in Kenya while the rich and powerful easily get reprieve from the courts. Judicial officers often refuse to see “real justice” through the miasma of primordial technicalities of procedure which the rich readily exploit. Our criminal justice system now seems to be a haven for criminals who get cleared after committing serious crimes such as murder, rape and robbery with violence. We have not heard your voice on the issue of murder suspects walking scot-free due to procedural technicalities. You must radically reform this system that only seems to perceive “justice” through the lenses of the villains and not the victims. You understand the quid pro quo doctrine well and four years is a long time; stand for the majority.

Waziri, use the constitutional reform and the gender equity agenda to your advantage. Nothing would endear you more to Kenyans than the attainment of genuine constitutional and legal reforms under your watch. Women constitute 52% of the productive population in Kenya but have been disfranchised from full participation in the political, social and economic development due to historical disadvantages. After close to 5 (five) decades of misrule by lethargic and corrupt male dominated regimes that have entrenched poverty, social and gender inequity, it will be not difficult to package and sell the idea of a principled, untainted, compassionate, and trustworthy woman leader to Kenyans.