In defence of the picketers who showed Anyang’ Nyong’o the door

Last Thursday I tuned into a morning call-in show on an FM radio broadcasting in Dholuo, and guess who they were discussing?

Yes, you guessed right. It was the four middle-aged men who days earlier walked leisurely into the Kisumu governor’s office and showed Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o and his coterie of local MPs the door.

Most callers thought the incident widely aired on national television was embarrassing and had no kind words especially for the group’s most voluble member, identified by his street name as Makamu.

There were others though who argued that Nyong’o & Co got just desserts, suggesting that the quartet was personally known to them and might even have run a few political errands for them in the past.

My hunch tells me the latter view is not far from the truth.

BONELESS DANCE

I must also confess that, save for the sorry feeling about watching our leaders leave what they said was an important consultative meeting in a huff, I found the whole drama thoroughly entertaining, with Makamu performing a boneless dance — remarkable for a man of his body mass — and reciting articles of the Constitution in perfect ‘Luonglish’.

Unlike the Men in Black thugs who disrupted ODM elections at Kasarani and scattered the party to the four winds, the Makamu group executed its mission without harming anyone and its act appeared to be closer to picketing — a constitutional right for citizens wishing to express their grievances — than hooliganism.

Theirs was also less graphic than the bloody ‘Mpigs demo’ staged by Boniface Mwangi’s group against greedy MPs outside Parliament Buildings in Nairobi last year.

PARLIAMENTARY DICTATORSHIP

And the Kisumu picketing couldn’t have come at a better time considering the public debate about the emerging parliamentary dictatorship in Kenya, which has seen MPs and Senators pass laws meant to either legitimise their greed or weaken other institutions.

Indeed, the picketers made it clear that they were protesting the attempt by Senators to take over the running of devolved governments through the controversial County Development Boards on which they selected themselves as chairmen.

The governors have gone to court to challenge the law that appears to give legislators executive powers in the counties.

But even if the court were to rule in favour of governors, there would still be no guarantee that the Senators won’t explore other means to gain control of county resources, including resorting to blackmail.

Recent events show that when it comes to advancing their personal interests, no institution has demonstrated the capacity to stop our MPs and Senators – not the executive, not the courts, not the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, not Commission for the Implementation of Constitution.

In Kisumu, it took the courage of a dancing devolution warrior to stop some of them.

Otieno Otieno is the Chief Sub Editor Business Daily