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What Chickengate ambulances say of Kenya’s governance

Tuesday, July 11, 2017 — updated on December 27, 2020 - 4 min read

President Uhuru Kenyatta, accompanied by Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero, test-drives one of the ambulances handed over to the county at State House. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By NJONJO MUE

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a recent photo of President Uhuru Kenyatta in State House handing over ambulances bought with proceeds from the Chickengate Scandal to seven counties spoke volumes.

In one snapshot, it told of the contradictions of our ailing governance system in general and the Uhuru presidency in particular.

His arguments have been misleading, self-serving and legally flawed in ways that are beyond the scope of this article. However, what is disturbing is that the same president, who is so passionate about safeguarding Kenya’s sovereignty saw no irony in using the hallowed grounds of State House, one of the symbols of that sovereignty, to flag off ambulances bought with the proceeds of money stolen from his own people in enforcement of a foreign court order.
The third and final contradiction in this whole drama is the unspoken role of Kenyan civil society in demanding that money recovered from Smith & Ouzman be returned to the Kenyan people as they were the real victims of the bribery of our election officials.
This is instructive because throughout the Uhuru presidency, the supporters of the regime have carried on a hate campaign against civil society, which they have derisively dismissed as ‘evil society’.

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What Chickengate ambulances say of Kenya’s governance

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