Dear leaders, these resolutions will make you better overseers for Kenya

In the coming days, as we have done like clockwork for eons, we will resolve to quit smoking and drinking to excess, lose weight, eat healthy, buy a piece of land and finally start building that house, spare more time for our spouses and children, disentangle ourselves from the clutches of that shady preacher, stand more firmly on our own two feet, et cetera, et cetera.

Then before we realise it, another year is upon us and we find ourselves making most of those same old resolutions all over again.

Tired of sounding like a stuck record, I am not making any personal resolutions this time around. Instead, I will make resolutions for those whose every word and deed can impact the lives of millions.

PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA AND DEPUTY PRESIDENT WILLIAM RUTO:

Guys, the election campaigns ended a long time. That you occupy the most important offices in the land is no longer in dispute. It is safe now to ease off on electoral mode, accept, and move on.

Call off the attack dogs on social media and the political platform and halt those retrogressive pieces of legislation and administrative actions that indicate a government under siege and afraid of its own shadow.

Red herrings and finger-pointing may excite the already converted, but everybody else can see that it is not the opposition, the media, civil society, or Western governments that are responsible for the very serious security problems afflicting the nation.

You can get on with the job of tackling terrorists without diverting energies to fighting imaginary enemies.

Oh, and it is also time to start uniting the nation. You cannot successfully confront myriad challenges while pursuing divisive “us versus them” strategies.

You are leaders of Kenya now, not just a political enterprise known as the Jubilee coalition.

RAILA ODINGA, KALONZO MUSYOKA AND MOSES WETANG'ULA:

I sometimes cannot figure out whether you mohines should be called the Three Musketeers or the Three Stooges. As leaders of the opposition Cord Alliance, you occupy pivotal space in the body politic.

You are supposed to be the government-in-waiting, providing alternative vision, policies, and programmes. Last year you did seem to promise something, but the Okoa Kenya initiative seems to have fizzled out even as evidence mounts of the need for a strong, united opposition to keep the government in check.

It is the opposition that can best counter the growing drift towards Kanu-style intolerance. You will do this best by projecting yourselves as a responsible alternative government, not by introducing thuggery into the National Assembly and demonstrating that you are incapable of even managing democratic elections in your own parties.

NATIONAL SPEAKER JUSTIN MUTURI:

Mr Speaker, Sir, you rate mention solo here, without your Senate counterpart Ekwee Ethuro, because you are the one making news for all the wrong reasons.

Please, in the new year, look back into recent history and borrow something from your two predecessors, Francis ole Kaparo and Kenneth Marende. Both came into office as nominees of political parties, but once they took the seat, they became Speaker of the House, not Speaker of one side.

You can learn that being Speaker carries onerous national responsibilities and is far removed from being a party youth winger.

CHIEF JUSTICE WILLY MUTUNGA:

Those in the know say that corruption and incompetence in the Judiciary is approaching Moi-era proportions. Enough said.

CABINET SECRETARY FOR INTERIOR JOSEPH NKAISSERY:

Everyone lauded your military record on being named to replace the hapless Joseph ole Lenku. But remember, kind Sir, you are employed as a manager, not a soldier.

You will not personally be leading troops into battle against the Al-Shabaab terrorists, but metaphorically you will be on the frontlines. Yours will be to put in place and manage an effective security plan that will rid Kenya of the menace of terrorists, bandits, and other malcontents.

You do not have the luxury of time. And remember, your loyalty must be first and foremost to Kenyans, not to appointing authorities who have demonstrated proclivity towards playing petty politics with serious security issues.

CHIEF OF DEFENCE FORCES JULIUS KARANGI:

For some reason, General, you are seen as the face of what looks like creeping militarisation under the UhuRuto regime.

The public tends to see your hand in the appointment of serving or retired military officers — presumably subservient to you — to key civil security offices.

Ditto the ready deployment of the military to domestic security challenges, sometimes with disastrous results, to put it politely, as with the Westgate siege. It also sometimes seems that President Kenyatta implicitly trusts you on national security to the exclusion of everyone else or that he is like putty in your hands.

Maybe there is no good reason for all that, but impressions and perceptions do matter. It might be a good idea, as you prepare for your retirement, to step back a little bit. You can still exercise power and influence from behind the scenes.

INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE A.N. OTHER:

Your identity is still unknown, but yours will be one of the most keenly awaited appointments.

Your predecessor, David Kimaiyo, and his titular boss, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku, took the fall for failures in the security establishment that have seen an upsurge in terrorist attacks. It will be up to you to determine whether the police can play their effective role in restoring security.

You will realise soon enough that contrary to finger-pointing from your political superiors, the enemy is not the new Constitution, enhanced democratic space, human rights, free expression, independent media, civil society, or the opposition.

It is a monster called Al-Shabaab and the inability or unwillingness of the security agencies to take the battle to it, as well as to cattle rustlers, clan militias, bandits, and assorted criminals.

If you approach your job determined to take on the enemy, you might succeed. If you approach it as a lap dog of the political leadership, you will fail.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL GITHU MUIGAI:

Dear Mr AG, I sometimes wonder whether you are the government’s chief legal adviser or the President’s personal counsel. Anyway, now that President Kenyatta has the ICC yoke off his neck, perhaps you will take time to advise him that laws taking us back to dictatorship are more trouble than they are worth.

They will not only tie up the government in the constitutional court, but spell a PR disaster for the President personally. In any case, many of the laws rammed through Parliament under the guise of beefing up the war on terrorism actually add little to that particular cause.

Perhaps it might help in the coming year if you took control and halted this trend of laws crafted by Jubilee MPs, activists, and campaigners.

DPP KERIAKO TOBIKO, ANTI-CORRUPTION BOSS MUMO MATEMU AND CID DIRECTOR NDEGWA MUHORO:

Although you occupy distinct and separate offices, I address you jointly because you represent the failure to punish serious crime. We have heard from your respective offices very much bark but almost zero bite when it comes to successful investigation and prosecution of grand corruption, the authors of political and ethnic violence, narcotics and game poaching kingpins, and so on and so on.

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