A regime that breaks the law is a bigger threat than Miguna

Navigating life’s rocky road, it is inevitable that you will occasionally encounter roadblocks — sometimes gigantic, immovable boulders. The foolish ones will employ brute force, using their thick heads as battering rams. The wiser ones will try to find less painful ways around, over or under the obstacle.

That is the only way I can describe activist lawyer Miguna Miguna’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport saga and second illegal deportation from his homeland. The controversial self-appointed ‘General of the National Resistance Movement’, in typical fashion, created a mighty ruckus at Kenya’s main gateway.

Dr Miguna was armed with multiple court orders directing the authorities to return his legitimate Kenya passport and restore his citizenship, and on that score would listen to nobody. He loudly berated and insulted police and Immigration officers who would not accede to his demands for unrecorded entry.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

His own lawyers, as well as human rights activists and senior Opposition politicians who had trooped to the airport to ease his passage, were not spared either with appeals for him to calm down and listen to reason dismissed out of hand.

The world was treated to televised drama of vintage Miguna Miguna in full battle cry — brash, loud, arrogant, contemptuous of everybody else, totally beyond management.

The Citizen TV broadcast from the airport captured it most aptly. The programme guide at the bottom of the screen still carried the title of the show that was interrupted to make way for the live feed: “AfroCinema”.

The world saw the original drama queen in his element. The man’s bloated sense of self-importance and an ego the size of the Canadian Rockies was bound to make for a reality TV show without a parallel and provide justification for President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government kicking him out of the country for the second time.

LEGITIMACY

And that’s where we go wrong. Every market has its madman. It is only an insecure government doubtful of its own legitimacy that would over-react to the ranting and theatrics of an unhinged fellow.

Nothing Dr Miguna says or does can justify the government’s abrogation of his inalienable rights, and total contempt for court orders and the judicial branch.

This is not about the misbehaviour of an individual but a government that is so easily provoked into exposing its worst characteristics.

Dr Miguna should never have been arrested and deported in the first place simply for participating in the mock swearing-in of Opposition leader Raila Odinga as the ‘people’s president’. If there was anything illegal about that, then the person to be put behind bars should have been the principal actor, Mr Odinga, rather than a member of the supporting cast.

CONTEMPT

Interior minister Fred Matiang’i, Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet and Immigration PS Gordon Kihalang’wa have been rightfully cited for contempt of court after defying orders for restoration of Dr Miguna’s citizenship rights. They should count themselves extremely fortunate to get away with only modest fines and not stiff jail terms.

The frightening thing is that they are likely even to ignore that judgment.

From inception of the saga, the Jubilee social media brigade was mobilised to offer hackneyed justification for the government’s actions.

Instead of offering competent defence in the courtroom, the regime turned to uneducated social media campaigns, its dysfunctional propaganda and communication arms, newspaper opinion and news pages and the political soapbox to not just hit out at Dr Miguna but attack the Judiciary and generally argue that the government is not compelled to obey the courts or abide by the laws.

BIGGEST PROBLEM

These dangerous justifications are our biggest problem. With all his outrageous and obnoxious behaviour, Dr Miguna offers absolutely no threat to national security, rule of law or democratic governance. Those threats are posed by a lawless regime too willing to expose its dark side — dictatorial, brutal, vindictive and contemptuous of the Constitution and the laws.

Let us never forget that it is President Kenyatta, not Dr Miguna, who is sworn to observe, protect and defend the Constitution. The moment he betrays that solemn oath, he provides a reason for the rest of us to defy the laws.

Then, we will have crossed the line from a civilised democratic State to a lawless, anarchic regime.

[email protected] Twitter: @MachariaGaitho