Maraga joins Ndii in non-state capture

A dog used to run up quietly to the heels of everyone he met, and to bite them without notice. So the owner put a bell on its neck. Thinking it a mark of distinction, the dog grew proud of his bell and went tinkling it all over the marketplace.

One day an old hound said to him: Why do you make such an exhibition of yourself? That bell that you carry is not an order of merit but a mark of disgrace, a public notice to all men to avoid you as an ill-mannered dog.”

And this year, we are being treated to similar notoriety so loud that we can all tell when the bell rings. We have a group of Kenyans who are louder than anyone else claiming to be the saviours of our nation.

At the beginning of this month, we were treated to this now famous way of thinking by two strange bedfellows – two continents apart. Chief Justice David Maraga, while giving a lecture at Oxford University appeared to be reading from the same script with economist and opposition activist David Ndii.

The CJ forgot he was the head of one arm of the government that has been accused of not doing enough to help in the fight against corruption and became an activist. He used that foreign stage to play to the gallery by throwing the blame on the executive and the legislature.

For some, perhaps this was a ploy to divert attention from his house – the Judiciary – that has been accused of not doing enough to help in the war on corruption.

He tore into the bastardisation of the 2010 Constitution by the political elite who have been "the cherry-picking” certain provisions and only implementing those that safeguard their personal or sectarian interests.

The question begs, where exactly was the esteemed Justice sitting when the new Constitution was promulgated in 2010? Other than the law on gender equality, it’s a matter of fact that more than four dozen laws have been passed in the last eight years that were required to bring the new Constitution to life.

The CJ was clearly playing to the gallery of foreigners and media that have of late been giving undue publicity to the idea that constitutionalism has failed in Kenya.

Talking from Oxford University, the alma mater of Ndii, you can almost predict that the CJ has been contaminated by the propaganda of the recently reinvigorated civil society.

This grouping would seem to want our Constitution suspended to give way to reforms that would usher in a new dispensation of constitutionalism and a fresh breed of leadership.

In an interview, Ndii expounded on the expectations of the 'People’s Assembly’, which he headed after the 2017 post-election chaos. According to him, this was supposed to mutate into a transitional arrangement.

Interestingly, this is the second time that Ndii was giving such an interview, having similarly done so in June 2018. At the time, he openly expressed his deep frustrations with the March 9, 2018, handshake, and how it basically upstaged the ‘People’s Revolution’.

To him, the current 'state actors’ are only interested in a so-called big tent agenda based on retaining power under the guise of ethnic and political inclusivity.

Doesn’t this threat on constitutionalism and the talk of a transitional government sound very similar to the frustrations of Maraga? Are they all reading from the same script? The question then begs, for who?

One thread of argument is clear, the non-state actors were to take on the running of the ‘transitional’ reform agenda leading to the retirement of Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and William Ruto. But now they are unhappy that state actors are running the ‘Big Tent’ agenda of political and ethnic inclusivity through the Building Bridges Initiative.

This can now be seen in light of their new game of accusing the political class of state capture. One is left wondering whether they themselves are interested in non-state capture.