Last week, I read a keynote address made by former chief justice Willy Mutunga at a security conference. He was addressing a local and international audience.
He began his address by pointing out that in the past, visitors would be welcomed with the slogan “Wageni Mwakaribishwa Kenya, nchi yetu hakuna matata.” However, in light of recent trends, he argued that the last part of that Kiswahili saying had to be changed to “kuna matata.”
Why is the country changing from being one that is peaceful and progressive to one where there is concern about the direction it is going? This is happening just eight short years since we adopted what is without doubt a very robust and progressive constitution.
The challenges the country is facing demonstrate that there is a limit to laws.
However progressive, laws do not on their own guarantee openness and democracy. They require life to be breathed into them. This process is about the interactions between the laws and the individuals in that society.
The process of the human-law interactions is captured in the concept of the rule of law. At its basis, the rule of law seeks to ensure that in the conduct of their affairs, human beings are guided by the prerequisites of laws that have been put in place for running that society.
The opposite of this is to allow might to rule and be the basis for determining what is right. This can only take us to a situation referred to by early scholars like Thomas Hobbes as the state of nature, one where life was short nasty and brutish. In that environment, everybody was for himself and no objective basis existed for regulating orderly relationships.
The last few weeks, the political class have treated the country to a theatre of the absurd. They are trying hard to make the provisions of the Constitution meaningless and to depart from centuries old tradition of adherence to the rule of law as the hallmark of democratic societies.
Kenya holds itself as a democratic society. Such a country has in place clear set of rules and institutions to mediate the implementation of those rules and deal with any dispute that may arise from that process.
The understanding is that the rules put in place are not optional. They are directional. We all have to obey them. Failure to do so attracts well-laid down penalties.
However, instead of this being the norm, it is quickly turning out to be an exception. Sadly, this reality is being driven by the leaders who have the greatest responsibility to ensure that rules are obeyed.
In a family, children ape what their parents do. This is why there is a Kiswahili saying which translates to “children grow up to what their parents raised them up to be.”
If you want your children to be religious then you have to lead by example as they grow up. It is, therefore foolhardy for political leaders to disregard rules they have participated in developing and hope that citizens will not follow their trend.
One of the factors that underpinned the reform of the country’s Constitution was the need to clarify that nobody, not even the president, is above the law. It, therefore, disheartens to watch leaders behaving as if the law is only for subjects and not those in leadership positions.
There is no need speaking about progress and development in a context of disregard of the rule of law. Time is ripe to realize that the success of the country depends on the extent to which there is rationality in our politics, decorum in our engagement and service in our leadership.
The National Assembly, County Assemblies and the Senate exist, amongst other things to make laws. What is the justification for the continued existence if we do not intend to obey laws.
Why waste taxpayer’s money engaging in an exercise which will not impact on our daily lives? Why speak about the need for Constitutional reforms when even the existing provisions are not taken seriously?
These are the questions we need to answer as a country if we are to avoid the dangerous path towards disaster.
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