President and Deputy must engage the governors
What you need to know:
- Reasonable demands: There are no reasons why President and Deputy should face off with their solid political and power base. It doesn’t make much political sense.
- On the insulation or constitutional protection of devolution, the President and his Deputy are blameless and blameworthy.
As I promised last week, today we look at the governors’ push for a referendum.
The gallant Governor of Bomet, Isaac Ruto, leads the push and he has a number of very able and courageous assistants in the governors of Wajir, Meru and Makueni.
The governors’ campaign for a referendum has two important components.
First, they want the budgetary allocation to county governments increased to 45 per cent of the national budget.
Second, they want to protect devolution from vicious attacks by the Senate and the National Assembly.
These proposals are reasonable and quite popular with Kenyans.
But what are the political dynamics of their push and how should the issue be handled by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto?
The governors’ push is people-centred. It is also people inspired and owned. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, the governors’ referendum is driven by the people; it is for the people; and of the people of Kenya.
It is a nationalistic drive to better their lives. And these are cardinal differences between Cord’s Okoa Kenya initiative and the governors’ referendum.
It is easy to dismiss, and rightly so, the Okoa Kenya initiative as one more of the endless political agitations of the coalition’s principals.
But the governors’ initiative is an entirely different ball game.
DEMANDS ARE REASONABLE
Because the governors’ push for a referendum is not powered by narrow political and selfish interests, there are no valid reasons why the government cannot sit with them and iron out the issues.
The government must understand that the push for a referendum by the governors is most popular in those counties where the Jubilee Government is strongest.
There are no reasons why the President and his Deputy should face off with their solid political and power base. It simply doesn’t make much political sense.
The two demands for more money for the counties and constitutional insulation of devolution are reasonable.
Kenyans are in agreement that where a function is devolved, the money for that function must be given to the counties.
Take for example roads. This is a devolved function. Yet the national government is in control of billions of budgetary allocation.
BLAMELESS AND BLAMEWORTHY
On the insulation or constitutional protection of devolution, the President and his Deputy are blameless and blameworthy.
There are no contradictions in this statement. They are blameless because the crippling assault on devolution is by the Senate and the National Assembly.
Justin Muturi and Aden Duale remain the strongest opponents of devolution in the National Assembly.
Whereas I understand where Duale is coming from, I fail to appreciate why the Speaker has become the Jubilee choirmaster in the House.
Both Muturi and Duale become saints when you see how teenagers’ adolescent shenanigans have been elevated to Senate debates and police enunciations.
Senator Kipchumba Murkomen and his counterpart from Tharaka Nithi Kithure Kindiki are a fine example.
They are ably assisted by Billow Kerrow and Moses Wetang’ula.
Their banal and boyhood debates in the Senate make a strong case for a mentorship programme for youthful senators.
These youthful senators, who have some training in law, have failed to understand the primary constitutional function of the Senate.
The Senate was created for the sole purpose of being a support pillar for devolution.
Instead, with youthful glee and unbridled excitement, they have turned it into the destroyer of devolution.
Uhuru and Ruto must engage the governors. They must cut off both the Senate and the National Assembly as they negotiate with the governors.
The process is simple: Make the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Devolution the principal negotiator. Give a time frame and push for a solution.
The quest by the governors has simple solutions. First Uhuru and Ruto must order that all illegal and unconstitutional amendments to certain statutes be repealed.
Second, Uhuru and Ruto must sit with the governors and agree on more money for the counties. Uhuru and Ruto cannot fight on two fronts.
Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi is the publisher, Nairobi Law Monthly [email protected]
