Why Raila should declare association with actors in State capture

Bad arguments occur when interlocutors focus on the shortcomings of each other rather than the merits and demerits of the subject under discussion. An otherwise clear question of good or bad, wrong or right,  guilty or innocent, is often time obfuscated by pointing fingers and intimidating opposing interlocutors with “you did it first” arguments.

This is what the noble initiative by the media this week to call out corrupt profiteers sucking the blood of the nation and its people has been reduced to.

A section of the print media early this week took the bold step of carefully investigating and exposing hitherto feared subject and objects of what it chose to call State capture. But the reaction from a progressively complacent public and equally escapist political class has been, unfortunately, disappointing.

The paper and the journalist(s) involved did a good job, putting themselves up for potential litigation and attendant financial costs, to bring to the fore the shenanigans involved in the scheming and implementing of schemes that lead to losses of billions of shillings of the tax-payers money in shoddy projects.

And unlike the usual tendency of hiding behind phrases such as a certain political party, a prominent individual, members of a certain family, the paper boldly put names to all the players  it believed are culpable, calling their bluff, and in  essence inviting them to deny their culpability.

That, so far, the individuals mentioned and accused of impropriety have not come out to publicly deny the accusations and proclaim their innocence goes a long way that the stories published are indeed true. And here lies the tragedy!

If indeed it is true that the schemes exposed by the stories are real, which recourse do the 44 million Kenyans who have continuously lost their hard-earned money over time have?

To whom will they run now that the offices of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission,  the State Law, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and all other public defenders have gone mute?

One would ordinarily hope that, in the absence of a bold public defence system from established government offices, the civil society or even the church would have added their voice to the expose’ by the media. Strangely, all these voices have either deliberately gone mute or have been muted by external factors.

WORRYING

But there is something dangerously worrying about this State capture narrative!

The said newspaper made it clear that the National Super Alliance, one of the main contenders in the general election expected in about a month, is directly benefiting from the proceeds of this crime against the Kenyan humanity.

Nasa is the political grouping whose leaders have been, for so many years, shouting on top of their voices over the dangers and practice of corruption. In fact, many of the alliance’s leaders, including its presidential candidate Raila Odinga, have presented themselves as the only people who can save the country from corruption and its grave effects. They have argued time and time again, that theirs is the only leadership that can emancipate the country from official pilferage that has bedeviled us since independence some 54 years ago. Some in its ranks have actually lived off and made a career out of their proclamations against graft. Among this group is former Permanent Secretary for Ethics John Githongo and columnist and economist David Ndii. It is imperative to note that the most common prefix of Mr Githongo’s is anticorruption czar. Now, these two gentlemen are senior advisors in Nasa and one may wonder what advise they are offering to their principals.

'CARTELS MUST FALL'

The reports in review bluntly fingered businessman Jimmy Wanjigi as the main architect and beneficiary of the scheme to defraud the public of billions of shillings and in the same breath described him as the head of Nasa’s finance mobilisation unit.

If Mr Wanjigi is head of one unit in Nasa and Messrs Githongo and Ndii are in charge of another, is it possible that they have not compared notes to see if that team can work together and to what end?

Nasa principal, and the man who hopes to be president in the next few days, Raila Odinga has also been loudly quiet about the grave accusations of benefiting from the bloodsucking schemes.

In fact, another national daily newspaper declared "Cartels must fall’ as a summary of Mr Odinga’s speech during the ceremony to launch his alliance’s manifesto, just a day after the story of State capture was published. How now?

The mere fact that Mr Odinga is seeking public office should be enough reason for him to come out publicly and either denounce or confirm that Mr Wanjigi is working for and with him.

The argument by some of his henchmen, mainly on social media, that Wanjigi previously worked with some leaders in the current government does not wash for a team that claims integrity as one of its pillars. 

Michael Cherambos is a social, political and economic commentator based in Nairobi.

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