The grim reality of what we did on March 4th, 2013

They were not even sworn in before they actively attacked the salaries and remunerations board. MPigs, as they are aptly known on social media are never going to be anything but the same variety of abject, pillaging swine as their nickname implies.

It is of course very understandable that a successful political aspirant would wish to recoup his financial investment in terms of campaigning costs, it is very understandable. However, It is only in Kenya and indeed it may even be an African phenomenon that one goes into government in order to get rich. Everywhere else in the world, if one really desires to enrich oneself they go into the private sector.

Why must I be forced to equivocate this; it is just absurd for us as Kenyans to complain about how MPs are planning to attack the SRC and even invent laws in order to increase their salaries when WE voted using the exact same method of selection as in the last election!

I mean how dumb are we? How is it that we use our tribe and personal interests when voting rather than a truly democratic and inclusive national ideology and then turn around SHOCKED when the hyenas we voted for bray for higher remunerations? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. This is a quote ascribed to Albert Einstein.

How pervasive is our self abuse when it comes to leadership? Well. Look at our constitution. I admit that the average Kenyan may not be educated enough to comprehensively understand the law as presented in the constitution. BUT, no one has stopped you as a citizen from educating yourself on this document. So the collective LAZINESS and lack of cognitive aspiration (a level of plain stupidity)  is what encumbers us as a republic.

How serious is this situation? Well. This past week we were privileged to observe on television the submissions by petitioners and their respondents. Kenyans are so unlearned such that they cheer the lawyer for their preferred party as though it is some sort of football match. We apply no thought, no criticism and no critical thinking to what these lawyers are doing at the Supreme Court. Just like the intellectual juveniles we really are, we applaud people whose legal grasp is kindergarten level just because they consistently use redundancies like “my lord” and “your honor”. 

And then there is the panel of judges of the court. A personal friend and true astute jurist put it best:

"The problem is that many Kenyans cannot discern between "authoritative" and "authoritarian". So, when a body like the Supreme Court TRIES not to appear authoritarian like a bad overbearing primary school principal (although that style, plus a frequent application of 20 of the best, is what virtually all those monkeys masking as "senior counsels" do seriously need), they fall into the other extreme, and lose all judicial authority and direction.
If you have watched the bench, they continuously behave like a gaggle of insecure 13-years-old schoolgirls. Body language, helpless smiles, mindless giggling. And with approximately the same degree of legal knowledge." Alexander Eichener, jurist, Germany.

How deeply rooted our complex problem is then. That we, as the astute electorate are so decidedly ignorant, and yes that WAS a decision we made, such that we cannot tell when an injustice is about to be delivered.

What is indeed our collective dilemma? That fundamentally, our constitution is so weakly ascribing to justice. Take this reality into consideration. That any presidential petition at the Supreme Court is essentially NEVER going to receive even the remotest sort of judicial response it deserves. The most obvious example I can give is this: the time frame given for presidential petitions to be presented and heard. (oh! The saddest part is the indulgence in megalomania that Willy Mutunga did, as he decided arbitrarily and unconstitutionally that petitions presented to the Supreme Court regardless of the time they were presented are deemed as to have been presented on the LAST day thus happily reducing the time for deliberations; yes Sir, you may be the CZAR of Kenya but when you change the constitution as such you have COMPLETELY overstepped your mandate, SIR!) So, the time frame has been constituted as to be so short such that even comprehensive or rather wide affidavits as the CORD lawyers presented were thrown out on the basis that there is NO time to examine those affidavits. Is this justice?  Of course not!

I pity us. How much trust and hope we laid at the feet of these intellectual 13-year-olds. That even Supreme Court Justice Mohammed Ibrahim went as far as to essentially admit in an obiter dictum, that because of the time contraints imposed by the law, there is a near impossibility of any actual juridical response as regards any presidential petition.
We have no REAL jurists in this country, mostly because of a general lack of true fundamental education, but also because we do not extend ourselves as a nation and because we ever so readily accept utter mediocrity. The one (1) internationally acclaimed and widely respected constitutional jurist and scholar that Kenya has, and who offered his help, was purposely excluded by the court, and not even listened to at all: ignoring professor Yash Pal Ghai has underscored our failures.
My final words are these: that regardless of the eventual outcome of the Supreme Court decision, true justice was certainly not served here.