‘I don’t care if it makes me unpopular’: Raila pushes for review of Devolution
Raila Odinga turned the first Katiba Day celebrations into a huge nightmare for Kenyan MPs and the political system as a whole when he declared he is ready to be the most unpopular politician in the country by standing up to defend the country from endless looting by MPs who have turned the NG-CDF into their pocket money.
Raila knows for a fact is that if there is one thing all Kenyan MPs are united about, it is stealing money from their constituents and all those opposition leaders talking about corruption will never say anything about taking away NG-CDF money from their MPs because they would be thrown out of the leadership of their own parties.
Opposition leaders like Kalonzo Musyoka and Rigathi Gachagua will never even pretend to demand that NG-CDF be focused on development for Kenyans and not stolen because as leaders their primary interest is to have MPs working for them as the new thieves to get that money so they can all eat together.
Raila Odinga has reiterated his call for the government to re-examine devolution to efficiently serve the country’s needs.
Speaking during the commemoration of the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution on Katiba Day at KICC, Raila also explained that the current provincial administration should be removed to make room for modern systems.
Kenya is right now going through a state of politics where our usually noisy opposition groupies pretty much have no agenda for anything and don’t even know where to go. Each of the opposition leaders clutching remote hopes of being the presidential candidate in 2027 wake up every morning thinking of how to get a topic to whine about with regards to the Ruto government.
Ooh how is William Ruto fighting corruption in Kenya one or two of them will cough out for media footnote. When is Raila Odinga officially joining the government, they keep asking themselves. None of that matters to any Kenyan who see the opposition as a lost canoe in a big ocean not meant for canoes.
As of now the opposition has been reduced to making dance moves because even their WANTAM hot air has blown out of gas and there is nothing else to do.
Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i and Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka on Friday when they broke into dance to Anguka Nayo song during a public forum in Yatta Constituency.
The two politicians could be seen exchanging smiles as they showcased their moves.
From the way things are moving on now, these politicians will have a better career as entertaining dancers in bus stops and kiosks than any hopes of even smelling State House. Too bad for Gachagua who may have to just pull out his dance moves with Ruto to remember the good old days.
Break Dance time it looks like! Keep kicking. One way or the other. Oh Dear
In the meantime, the opposition promised big war against the Compensation Panel of Experts to start working on justice and remedy for victims of state violence in Kenya and they were sure they were going to stop the whole process.
Infact there must have been some real hopes and prayers among the dormant opposition leaders that a big war about compensation of victims of state terrorism could ignite another war where the Gen Z activists go to battle with the government.
The Kenyan opposition which is totally incapable of organizing any mass action of Kenyans against the Ruto government must have been praying day and night that Gen Z comes back into the picture fighting the government so that Rigathi Gachagua and Kalonzo Musyoka would once again hide behind that and be the self-declared leaders of Gen Z actions.
That is not happening, the Gen Z fighters are basically letting the opposition boys know that they are not going to be puppets for clueless hungry politicians fighting for power for themselves.
The attempt to demonize and blackmail any Kenyans who are ready and willing to join the Compensation Panel to try to achieve concrete results for victims who require compensation has fallen flat in its face. The appointed members to the Compensation Panel include well known and respected human rights voices of the nation who have been doing real and concrete work for human rights in our country for decades.
The Panel members include outstanding Kenyan human rights fighters like LSK Chairperson Faith Odhiambo who has just been sworn in as the Vice Chairperson of the Panel of Experts on Compensation for Kenyan victims of state violence.
We also have other well respected Kenyan human rights advocates like Irungu Houghton who works with Amnesty International in Kenya and who has been working to improve human rights in Kenya for more than 20 years and who actually used to work with the earlier generation of Kenyan students exiled from the country by the political thugs in power at that time.
We first met Irungu Houghton in Canada in the late 1990s when he was a young activist reaching out to work in the human rights movement and we are happy for him to have kept that journey and will add to his credentials in fighting for what is good for the country by getting good results from the compensation team.
The political opportunists who were hoping to paralyze the whole effort by tying knots around the necks of activists and begging them to reject any offers to be part of the compensation system can now go back to sleep and keep snoring and when they wake up, they will see the results of the compensation work for the victims and then just keep doing nothing.
As Kenyans who have been in the human rights battles and wars all our lives, we see this development as a good step for victims of state violence. Kenyans and all human rights groups in the country know there is a lot of work to be done and it must start now.
We also know that for the political opportunists hunting for power, justice for victims of human rights abuses makes no sense to them because they do not know what it means to be in that situation.
Kenyans will also look at and welcome sentiments by Raila Odinga when he questioned the implementation of the 2010 constitution and also looking at some of the glaring gaps between the intentions and actual achievements of the katiba.
Raila for example asked why Kenya has 47 devolved units, while a continent like the United States has 52, including federal districts and territories.
Alluding to that, Raila proposed a three-tier system that would comprise: county, regional and national governments to enhance development.
“I believe the time has come to re-examine the entire model of devolution. For instance, Nigeria, with over 200 million people, has fewer states compared to the number of counties we have,” he stated.
“I am not proposing the abolition of any county, but I believe the provincial administration is a colonial relic that should be done away with.”
Raila sustained his push to have Members of Parliament surrender the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) to the counties, citing that the lawmakers’ role should primarily be representation, legislation and oversight.
“We are not supposed to be funding projects through NG-CDF when we already have two levels of government: national and county. Parliament should focus on doing what it is constitutionally mandated to do, particularly oversight. If you are both an MP and a contractor, then who is truly carrying out the oversight role?” he posed.
Raila noted that such reforms would be subjected to a national referendum before being implemented. He acknowledged that his clarion call has become ‘unpopular’, citing that he was willing to pay the price.
“Over this, there’s no compromise, tunaenda kwa wananchi. I know this stand is making me very unpopular, I don’t care, I’ll stand my ground on this particular issue,” Raila noted.
On the NPS agenda, Raila strongly criticized human rights abuse by the police and cited that reforms would be key in eliminating the vice.
“Some of these institutions in the 2010 Constitution have let the country down in my estimation. The NPS has left us worse off than we were in 2010. Abuse of the right to life, degradation of human dignity, torture and denial of security persons by the police have increased under the watch of NPS.”
Adongo Ogony is a Kenyan Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
