What would Cameron do? The question Uhuru won’t ask

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses the nation during Mashujaa Day Celebrations on October 20, 2016 at Kenyatta Stadium, Machakos. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • President Uhuru Kenyatta deserves plaudits for indicating that he wouldn’t consider employing such savagery in the fight against corruption.
  • David Cameron, the former British prime minister, had been expected to pay Kenya a State visit in June this year.
  • Official corruption in Kenya is a plague, and it will take a firm, indefatigable leadership to contain it.
  • In Kenya’s long bravely-borne battle with corruption, the courts are often the morticians.

In true democracies, presidents or heads of state don’t have their citizens shot by the firing squad for whatever reason.

And President Uhuru Kenyatta deserves plaudits for indicating that he wouldn’t consider employing such savagery in the fight against corruption.

But there is something presidents or heads of state in true democracies do whenever they find themselves in situations where they have to admit leadership failure – they resign.

Perhaps it was testimony to the atmosphere of intimidation at the State House Summit on Corruption last Monday that none of the attendees summoned enough courage to point out this simple fact to Mr Kenyatta when he kept asking, “What do you want me to do?”

As they say, if you can’t stand the heat, leave the kitchen.

David Cameron, the former British prime minister, had been expected to pay Kenya a State visit in June this year.

That same month, his people voted in the Brexit referendum to decide whether to stay or leave the European Union (EU).

The Leave side won. Mr Cameron, who had spearheaded the campaign to keep his country in the EU, immediately announced he would be resigning to let a fresh leadership steer the UK in a new direction.

INDEFATIGABLE LEADERSHIP

As it were, Mr Kenyatta never got to host the high-profile British guest at State House.

But the Kenyan President, who has been publicly confessing powerlessness in dealing with corruption in his government lately, still needed to have learnt a lesson from Mr Cameron’s dignified exit.

Rather than wonder what others expect him to do, Mr Kenyatta should ask himself, “What would Cameron do?”

Official corruption in Kenya is a plague, and it will take a firm, indefatigable leadership to contain it.

Mr Kenyatta’s lamentations and buck-passing amount to conceding defeat to the corruption cartels.

The scapegoating of the Judiciary is ridiculous. In Kenya’s long bravely-borne battle with corruption, the courts are often the morticians. The level of monkey business in law enforcement, investigation and prosecution is such that a corruption case involving a big person is mostly dead on arrival in the courts.

Try to pore over any of the many affidavits about the NYS scandal, for example, and you will see official collusion – including bungled investigations – written all over it.

The President has himself suggested that the so-called List of Shame handed to him by the EACC, which he read out in Parliament and relied on to fire five Cabinet ministers, was probably half-baked.

What does he want the judiciary to do? Clearly, the executive and the supporting cast of investigative and prosecution agencies he claims to have no control over are the weakest link in the fight against corruption.

Otieno Otieno is the chief sub-editor of the Business Daily newspaper: [email protected]