If indeed it is true, as Raila Odinga claimed at Wiper headquarters yesterday, that the government barred Kalonzo Musyoka from travelling to Uganda without clearance from State House, Nairobi, it is a scandal.
In recent weeks this has happened too to other VIP Kenyans, including co-director of the Kenyan NGO InformAction Maina Kiai and IEBC commissioner Roselyne Akombe, both of whom had to miss flights.
There are overt elements of bureaucratic pettiness, intolerance and intimidation in these official actions.
Kalonzo, the 10th and last Vice President of Kenya; Kiai, until recently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and Akombe, a US citizen who has a UN job, do not require State House or any other Government of Kenya permission to travel abroad.
Kalonzo is no longer a member of the Cabinet or the bureaucracy and Kiai and Akombe have never been.
The Jubilee administration has no need for conduct that only underwrites its fiercest critics’ accusations of heavy handedness.
