Jubilee coy about blowing trumpet on its singular success

Out of a mixture of coyness, good manners and decency, the Jubilee government is struggling to hush its great successes by deflecting attention to modest achievements recorded in its four years in office.

Incredulous stories about roads, electricity connections, free maternity care, the standard gauge railway and others launched on the government web portal are the foil to the towering success of uniting Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance and William Ruto’s United Republic Party.

By the time Mr Kenyatta took national leadership, he had only served as minister — with tours of duty at Local Government, Trade, and Finance and as Deputy Prime Minister — for a cumulative six years while his running mate, Mr Ruto, had a total of three years’ experience as Minister for Home Affairs, Agriculture and Higher Education.

Given their relative inexperience, Kenyans should be amazed at how they have performed so well even before the expiry of the constitutional five-year term in office.

THE ICC CLOUD
No one expected the Jubilee administration to build a single one of the promised five stadiums.

What started out as an attempt to tackle a personal challenge for Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto in facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court has turned into a national triumph, giving Kenya the voice to call out the racist imperialism in the unjust world order at the United Nations.

A year ago, the last of the two major crimes against humanity facing Mr Ruto collapsed, months after Mr Kenyatta’s similar case was withdrawn for lack of evidence.

Within months of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto occupying the presidency, people trained and paid to lie about dying during the 2007/8 post-election violence suffered a sudden attack of conscience and recanted their testimony, making Kenya one again.

For years, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had been skulking around like a fugitive because of two ICC arrest warrants.

Mr Kenyatta has visited 37 countries on 84 trips abroad, with 25 state visits under his belt in just four years, and thus beating Mr al-Bashir’s record of 74 trips over eight years.

WARRANTS OF ARREST

Fears of Kenya’s international isolation on account of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto’s ICC cases were unfounded.

How the two faced down imperial powers and won is a story of sheer will and determination.

They have exposed the ICC as a judicial scarecrow designed to psychologically torture African democrats for the amusement of imperial powers.

They only whispered the magic words, mene tekel urphasin (numbered, numbered, weighed and divided), and the cases at the ICC crumbled like a cookie.

No other Kenyan — including Walter Barasa, Paul Gicheru and Philip Bett against whom the ICC has issued warrants of arrest — will be leaving the country soon.

The imperialists who had plotted for the removal of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto from Kenya’s political equation have found themselves begging to lend the country money at a time when it was spoilt with cheap loans from China.

CORRUPTION

Kenya is no longer begging the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for loans; they are the ones hanging around, blowing kisses at the government’s fundamentals by endorsing economic policy, giving the seal of approval to the expenditure of the Eurobond loan.

Jubilee leaders have not only met the UN Secretary General, but they have also hosted him several times, and brought then United States President Barack Obama to Kenya. It is Jubilee that brought the Pope to Kenya.

Those who complain about corruption fail to appreciate the attraction a reputation for kickbacks has for investors keen on alternative ethics.

The reputation of corruption diversifies Kenya’s character portfolio beyond athletics, raising the country’s international standing and enabling it to take its place at the table when the world is writing the social development goals.

Imagine what Jubilee could do in a full five-year term, without the distraction of personal challenges.

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