President William Ruto has said his government will implement a more than two-year-old report that was meant to address the issues that sparked Maandamano in 2023. I agree with you if you are befuddled. I agree with you if you conclude that our politics is calcified.
Ruto told a March 10 joint meeting of the United Democratic Alliance and the Orange Democratic Movement legislators that he was going to follow through on the 120 recommendations the National Dialogue Committee made in a report that was tabled in the National Assembly in December 2023. The President said this to confirm to his ODM friends that he is committed to their partnership.
More than two years have passed since NADCO, the acronym it is known by, was formed, so here’s a quick recap: the committee was formed in August 2023 following the opposition-led protests between March and July 2023. These protests began with the opposition, which included ODM at the time, demanding for the selection of credible and independent members of the electoral commission. The public, however, was more concerned with the high cost of living, which opposition leaders quickly took up to keep the momentum going. And so Maandamano Mondays and Tear-gas Thursdays were born.
By the end of that season of demonstrations, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights reported 24 people killed and 130 seriously injured. Soon after the demonstrations, NADCO was formed, concluding its work in November 2023 and tabling its report in the National Assembly on 7 December 2023.
To date, the only achievement of NADCO is the reconstitution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Most of its 120 recommendations remain just that, recommendations. Yet, if the government had been diligent and determined, the bloodletting of June-July 2024 could have been avoided. One of NADCO’s recommendations was the National Treasury to review, by February 2024, the existing tax policy and taxation measures for, among other things, “lowering tax burden on Kenyans’’.
Now Ruto is promising, again, to fully implement this and other NADCO recommendations.
The opposition, specifically the loose alliance now called the United Opposition, is equally out of touch.
Key leaders of the United Opposition, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and former Attorney General Justin Muturi, have been giving us the inside scoop of what it was like working in Ruto’s Cabinet. They have made allegations against Ruto that should have triggered a parliamentary investigation or two. At the very least, their former colleagues in Parliament should have called them to order and demanded they substantiate their allegations.
None of that has happened.
Instead, we are left with Gachagua and Muturi rehashing their allegations at the next podcast/talk show. From the opposition’s perspective, this is important; to keep the message out there that Ruto cannot be trusted and that his government’s claims of fighting and being against corruption cannot stand up to scrutiny.
But this cannot be the United Opposition’s only message.
The public mood had already turned against Ruto and his government before Gachagua and Muturi began their Cabinet Revelations Road Show. The youth-led tax revolt of June and July 2024 happened while Gachagua and Muturi were still in Cabinet. That tax revolt morphed into a protest against Ruto, the excesses of his Cabinet and legislators allied to him and the cosy relationship the Church had with Ruto.
The youth were ahead of Gachagua and Muturi. And so all the former deputy president and attorney general are doing is providing insider details to what the public already sensed or suspected. For sure, they are generating hundreds of thousands of views for the platforms they appear on, but they are not setting the agenda. They and their fellow travellers in the United Opposition do not seem to offer more than titillation.
An obvious place the United Opposition could shine is in Parliament, where it has a significant presence in the National Assembly and Senate. Yet little is heard of them. It used to be that a single legislator captured the public imagination by speaking to an issue of public interest or offering a well-thought and argued position on a bill or policy, enough to provoke change.
Here, I am thinking of the self-proclaimed People’s Watchman, Martin Shikuku, during the 5th Parliament (1983 to 1988). I am also thinking of those The Weekly Review magazine nicknamed the Young Turks who served during the 7th Parliament (1992-1997): Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Anyang Nyong’o, James Orengo, Mukhisa Kituyi and Kiraitu Murungi. And I am also thinking of Boni Khalwale during the 10th Parliament (2007-2013).
None of the United Opposition’s legislators rise to a similar stature. And yet, there is a vacuum left by the Orange Democratic Movement now that it is in the so-called broad-based government. ODM used to suck up all the opposition oxygen. No more. The United Opposition could easily fill that vacuum especially in parliament, but it has failed to do so.
Our politics is calcified.
