Kwamchetsi Makokha’s sideways look at the IEBC

Should a Kenyan give you a chicken, or deign to share with you a meal in which the bird is a defining ingredient, you must accept the gift as a reminder of the need to forget.

Memory is not one of the attributes for which chicken are renowned. That is why when you deal chicken in Kenya, you do not enter the event into online correspondence — as happened in the unfortunate matter of Smith & Ouzman of London in the procurement of election ballots and examination papers — or misinterpret it for deep respect and a signal of future welcome.

The latter is the regrettable error of Mr Kofi Annan, who was gifted a chicken after mediating Kenya’s political detente that ended month-long hostilities between the Government/Party of National Unity and the Orange Democratic Party in 2008.

For their meticulous book-keeping, Smith & Ouzman’s owners and managers are spending the holiday season in a frenzy of farewells ahead of their journey to jail because the Queen of the United Kingdom and her people do not appreciate the cultural sensitivities of eating chicken.

Mr Annan, on the other hand, failed to eat his chicken and probably kept it as a pet reminder of the deep cultural connection he had created with the Kenyan people. Soon after receiving his chicken, Mr Annan cultivated a routine of regularly visiting Kenya and offering a running commentary on the health of the shot-gun marriage between PNU and ODM, officially known as the Grand Coalition Government.

He was witness to ODM’s Raila Odinga and his half Cabinet taking oath as they joined the Mwai Kibaki government; he would issue periodic statements on progress made in achieving goals set out under Agenda 4 of the mediation agreement: constitutional and institutional reform, land and historical injustices, ethnicity and inequality, as well as tackling poverty and youth unemployment, and entrenching transparency and accountability while tackling impunity.

POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE ENVELOPE

It was him who was handed over the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence’s envelope containing 11 names of suspected masterminds to Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.

Mr Annan was there when the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, was being promulgated in the presence of Sudan’s President Omar el-Bashir. The former UN Secretary General needed reminding that over 30 per cent of Kenyans of voting age had rejected the Constitution.

During Mr Annan’s last visit to Kenya, in December 2012, the chairman of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission avoided meeting him even before he had publicly warned the country about the perils of electing people facing charges at the ICC.

It has been two full years since Mr Annan visited Kenya, seeing that the country chose to democratically elect two individuals facing charges at the International Criminal Court. Mr Annan’s fears about Kenya’s leaders being isolated because of cases at the ICC has been proven unfounded.

His successor at the UN, Mr Ban Ki-moon, has been to Kenya several times. What does Mr Annan know? The case against President Uhuru Kenyatta has been withdrawn because there is no evidence to sustain a trial. All the hype about institutional renewal, especially reforming the security sector has yielded nothing but death and injury.

Mr Odinga is out of government, and incapable of causing anyone trouble. No one remembers Agenda 4 anymore, but more importantly, Kenya is running without the help of a prefect and becoming a middle income economy that does not need to worry about youth unemployment, historical injustices or poverty.

The gift of chicken is an invitation to forget Mr Annan should have embraced.

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