Page 5 - THE RHINO Issue 002

TRUTH OR DARE:
04
When a dare backfires in Eastlands, someone ends up going home with one less tooth and a limp that will last a week. In this case, who will go home limping and missing a tooth? Is the Chief Justice, the parliament or the president?
The second risk is that the outcome of the dare can acquire a life of its own, to the extent that you forget what the original dare was about! And this is what will happen with the current constitutional crisis we find ourselves in. Yes, parliament will be dissolved. But what happens next? What will happen is that we will go into an early General Election.
All legal indications show that the presidential, parliamentary and county elections cannot be de-linked. But what will also happen within the General Election is a Referendum. By advising the president to dissolve parliament, Maraga has unintentionally accelerated the BBI process.
Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga’s crusade for the BBI referendum was previously premised on moral grounds. The argument was against a Winner Take it All system that causes high octane, deadly elections. But with only a moral reason for a referendum, Kenyatta and Odinga needed to be persuasive. Now they have been handed constitutional grounds for a referen- dum. And this ‘new and improved’ referendum will not only touch on matters of the dissolu- tion of parliament and the actualization of the two-thirds gender rule. Other questions like the transition to a parliamentary system will fea- ture prominently.
Finally, when Chief Justice Maraga retires in a few months, he will do so as the Chief Justice who delivered the BBI. And because of this un- intended result of a dare, he will probably go home with a limp that will last more than a week.
When a dare backfires in Eastlands, someone ends up going home with one less tooth and a limp that will last a week.
OCTOBER ‘04
PARLIAMNET WILL BE DISSOLVED
People from Nairobi’s Eastlands say that the street currency when they were growing up was ‘audacity’. You had to prove yourself by daring people, and standing up to dares. In Eastlands, you drew a line on the ground and dared anoth- er kid to cross it. There were even dare words, like ‘ng’we!’, which you only said when you de-
BY DAISY MARITIM cide to be brave enough to cross the ‘point of
no return’.
Daisy is a Political Columnist, If someone in the neighborhood dared you, you
OUR COLUMNIST
and a PhD Candidate in Political look them straight in the eye and dare them
Economy.
back. You do not run home to tell your mother that you are being threatened, because she, in the true spirit of East-
lands, will also dare you to go back and be audacious.
If you did not have audacity in Eastlands, you were officially ‘the wretched of the earth’, bulldozed by everyone, taunted even by small children and condemned to permanent tears. You were better of stay- ing indoors all day, living a safe but boring and cowardly life. In those play streets, if you do not risk anything, you risk everything. You see, the thing about dares is that they come at an unpredictable cost. Once you set a dare, or take up a dare you enter into the realm of proba- bility. You venture into the unknown. The Constitution made a serious dare to a group of people; “do this one task within 5 years, or else, you will lose your job”. Cross this line, and you are finished. Say ng’we!
Unfortunately, the group of people who were given an ultimatum by the Constitution are not ordinary Kenyans who would bend over back- wards to protect their jobs. The people who were dared are politi- cians. They are the summit of hardheaded ‘Eastlanders’ from all over the country, always ready to cross the point of no return. They are a chaotic conference of daredevils. They don’t respond to threats. In fact, when the Constitution dares them, they dare the Constitution back!
Because of these daredevils, Chief Justice has advised the President to dissolve Parliament. Some parliamentarians have said ‘ng’we!’- do it! They have thrust themselves deep into the realm of probability. And guess what, the President will do it! It looks like the Constitution will win the dare.
Giving and taking dares has two main risks. The first risk is that dares can backfire.
ISSUE N. 002