Carry your own cross, Raila tells the corrupt

Public officials who engage in corruption should not hide behind their tribes when they are arrested, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has warned.

The PM stated that the war against corruption could be lost if Kenyans rally behind their tribesmen who loot public coffers.

“Public officials have committed crimes as individuals, but turned to their tribes for cover when called to account,” the PM lamented during a public forum at the University of Nairobi Friday to discuss the effects of negative ethnicity on the country.

“Tribe has frustrated the war on corruption and denied us the economic growth we need.”

Mr Odinga accused leaders of failing to tackle the cancer of negative ethnicity and instead glorifying it to achieve their own political ends.

“Leaders have condemned and called it the cancer that threatens the very fabric of our society,” he told the audience, which included hundreds of university students.

“Yet tribe has marched on hand in hand with the nation, condemned in public but tolerated behind closed doors. Never subdued, it has at times threatened to subdue the nation itself,” he added.

The PM questioned why Kenyans continue to be denied jobs they qualify for simply because of their tribal backgrounds saying the new Constitution was clear that there should be no segregation on account of one’s ethnic or gender affiliation.

“Ideally, Kenyans should live and work in any part of our country and pursue legitimate goals of improving their lot without interference. That has not been the case,” he stated.

“We know that tribe has been used to prevent our citizens from living or working anywhere in the country. It has been used to prevent our citizens from participating in the social, political and economic life of the communities in which they choose to live,” he added.

He reiterated his and President Kibaki’s commitment to implement the new constitution in order to entrench laws which guard against ethnic segregation and promote national unity.

“The Constitution we recently unveiled offers great prospects for reclaiming our nation from the clutch of the tribe,” he said, citing article 10 which entrench national values such as patriotism, national unity and devolution of power.

He also cited article eleven which mandates the state to promote all forms of national and cultural expression.

“Article 56 requires affirmative action to ensure that minorities and marginalized groups participate and are represented in governance and other sphere of life,” he said.

Mr Odinga's sentiments were echoed by Home Affairs assistant minister Beatrice Kones and a former MP Njoki Ndung’u, who said the war on corruption should not take ethnic undertones since those who stole public money did not share it with their tribes.

Mrs Kones and Ms Ndung’u said it was unfair for those implicated in graft to claim "our people are being finished".

They were speaking in Mombasa on the sidelines of a retreat for senior officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Additional reporting KNA