Kenya Constitution: Voting NO is Perilous

Published on 5th July 2010

The idea of terming Kenya’s Proposed Constitution (PCK) as 95% good is taking us nowhere. Who did the audit? From whose point of view?

My total support for the Proposed Constitution is not based on the percentage of its goodness, but because incrementally it advances our struggle for democracy and social justice. There are issues in the PCK that I would have wished to see in a constitution that the Committee of Experts (CoE), Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and the Parliament in their wisdom ignored. There are matters that have been included that I had not contemplated but I find welcome. Yet there are those I wonder where the hell they were fished from.

As one who has spent close to 30 years struggling for a liberating constitution, I find a big leap forward in the Proposed Constitution. Assigning percentage points does not work because not all Kenyans have the same yardstick to measure the gains. It gives "perfectionists" to say they want to make it 100% (or is it 1000%) perfect. Where on earth?

And who are the "perfectionists"? They include former president Daniel arap Moi who spent 24 years in office detaining and hounding into exile Kenyans who dared hope for a new constitutional order. Didn't Moi repeatedly tell us there is nothing wrong with the current constitution? Other perfectionists include the Youth for Kanu '92 brigade that almost bankrupted this country fighting against democratic reforms; and persons we relieved of university leadership positions in 1982 when they made unauthorized contact with state agents to undermine collective position by SONU to oppose introduction of the infamous Section 2A in the Constitution in June 1982.

The NO proponents who say that 5% of the issues in the PCK are divisive have identified Land, Kadhi’s Court, Abortion and Devolution as the so-called contentious issues.

I seek to be informed. Will we be more united when millions of Kenyans are squatters in their own land as is currently the case in large parts of the Coast, Rift Valley, Central and Western provinces, while swathes of productive land lie fallow as is currently the case? Are we unified when the rich and powerful invade water towers and environmentally fragile land like wetlands and coastal beaches? Are we one nation simply by having foreigners own ranches and keep them as trophies for 1,000 years amid landlessness as is currently the case in Laikipia, Kajiado and elsewhere?

I bet we will be a united nation when we, Christians, deny Muslims such simple things like a court to deal with their personal law regarding marriage, divorce and inheritance but force them to observe our Sabbath, religious holidays, and Judeo-Christian jurisprudence and receive Christian Religious Education in public schools! Does it mean that the more our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters die of pregnancy-induced complications, the more cohesive we are?

I hear we want to forestall divisiveness by creating more counties. Can 70, 100 or 300 counties be more effective at providing checks and balancing the national government? Can we learn from our own national history what Kenyatta - and later Moi - did to local governments after they abolished the powerful regional assemblies? For the record, in my first two years in primary school, the fee was paid to the County Council of Central Nyanza, which was then responsible for primary education. It was the same for all county councils before these services were taken to the Central Government through administrative fiat.

I am for a constitutional order that will usher in true democratic governance, equality of opportunities and social and economic justice. The PCK does not guarantee us all these but it will put us firmly on the path to realizing the same. Voting NO is voting for the dictatorial, exploitative and repressive past. The choice is ours.

PS. Did I hear some people say we can reject the PCK and have a new constitution by December? Tell me another sweet lie. Unless they want to give us a "pigeon hole" constitution ala Uganda's Milton Obote in 1966!

By Oduor Ong'wen
Country Director, SEATINI Kenya
The author can reached at [email protected]


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