Kongamano La Mageuzi, a united front of progressive individuals, political parties and organizations,  is here in Mathare today to offer its Vitu Kwa Ground statement. We want to focus on the issues we, citizens of Kenya care about, that is,  Healthcare, Education and the Economy. We are here to rally WaKenya to come and work together to salvage our beloved country.  Ours is a call for a genuine and frank conversation on the real State of the Nation. This conversation must begin with an admission that our Nation is sick. It is not “brimming with the promise of an even brighter tomorrow.” It is a nation who’s national political leadership has set us on a path to self-destruction. We must change this and save our country. 

Healthcare 

We are a mourning Nation, grappling with the avoidable deaths of thousands of our compatriots from a pandemic the administration has failed to handle. Frontline health workers have been pushed to senseless martyrdom, while COVID-19 billionaires roam the streets with impunity. With the strike notice issued by our doctors, Kenyans find themselves in an incredibly difficult situation.  

The doctors are within their rights to demand better working conditions.  However, their withdrawal from hospitals would mean grimmer times for all Kenyans. Health facilities across the country and especially in the informal settlements are already struggling with inadequate healthcare workers and facilities.  A strike in the middle of a pandemic is not ideal, but necessary given the insensitivity of the Jubilee administration to the legitimate demands of our healthcare workers.  We stand in solidarity with our doctors, nurses and clinical workers and commend them for their sacrifice and service. 

Education

Our education sector is in peril. The autocratic management at the Ministry of Education has led to high levels of fear among teachers, parents and students. KLM is aware of a massive cover-up of the COVID-19 situation in our schools, with the complicity of the compromised Teacher’s Unions and senior officials at the Ministry of Education. This cover-up will only lead to more deaths of our children and teachers and must stop immediately. COVID-19 is a pandemic and nobody should be blamed for contracting it. The stigmatization must end. Neither should anyone be put at risk of contracting it. Our schools are ill equipped to ensure the safety of our teachers and children.  

KNUT and KUPPET should honor the memory of their members who have paid the ultimate price in service to our country. They should not hide their names. We pay tribute to all our teachers and educators and celebrate their selflessness to serve amidst these hard times.  KLM will strive to bring back sanity and dignity to the national education sector. We shall end the corruption and control of the sector by cartels enabled by unpatriotic officials in the Ministry of Education. The betrayal and robbery rampant in the education sector must be stopped. 

The pandemic is widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. Millions of children who have no access to internet or gadgets have been left stranded. The effects of COVID-19 on our children, especially girls cannot be overstated. 

It is urgent that the Ministry of Education embarks on consultations with parents, teachers and other stakeholders on a well thought-out school-reopening plan. This plan must balance between the safety of our children and teachers and the long-term implications of school closures. The costs associated with the preventive measures must be paid for by the state, not parents.  This is possible if we stop spending money on private political projects such as the BBI referendum. 

The Economy 

On 25 November, the Nation watched in horror as President Uhuru Kenyatta and Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga held, yet again, another BBI-related event in the midst of a pandemic. In their statements, they did not speak about the millions who have lost their jobs,  the unpaid hospital bills and rents and the hospitals filling up with COVID-19 patients. They could not, simply because they are out of touch with reality. In their lavish lives, they cannot relate to the struggling Kenyans who are barely surviving. Or the thousands of unemployed youths reduced to the theatrics of wheelbarrows and tokenistic Kazi Mtaani  while their future is squandered.  

Despite concerns about Kenya defaulting on its now seven trillion debt, the shameless borrowing continues. Misplaced priorities have seen billions of shillings spent on illegitimate processes like the BBI and the opaque Huduma number. Yet social security interventions in the midst of a pandemic have been ignored. How insensitive can people’s representatives be that they demand for emergency helicopters to hospitals when their constituents are facing death each day? Not even NHIF will cover us at the time we need it the most. Which government increases taxes on its people in the midst of an economic crisis, while it plunders public funds?  

Kongamano La Mageuzi calls for an urgent conversation on the state of the nation. This is not the time for polemics on a Moses delivering Kenyans to Canaan. It is a time to reflect on our priorities as a country. It is a time to re-evaluate what we need to do to avert an even deeper healthcare, economic and education crisis. 

This is not the time to be spending fourteen billion shillings to weaken our constitution, entrench an imperial presidency and burden Mwananchi by increasing the public wage bill. It is the time to stop spending money we do not have, on a referendum we do not need. 

To this end, KLM  will hold its 1st National Kongamano on 12 December 2020 with participants representing the diversity of Kenya’s counties and interest groups, to deliberate on the State of Kenya and unveil the KLM national agenda and programme for political and economic transformation and freedom with and for all Kenyans. Participants will also consider and approve the KLM coalition and movement structure and elect a leadership to drive the movement’s political  agenda for change.

It is time for a different DNA to Kenya’s governance and political leadership. KLM is here and ready to lead that transformation. 

29  November 2020

Our medical professionals have been fighting selflessly for the past nine months, even without a clear government COVID-19 response plan. Their reward has been a blatant and almost intentional failure by the national government to accord our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters in the medical profession, the due support that they require and deserve. Misuse of COVID-19 funds, inadequate personal protective equipment and little to no training on case management, lack of testing and tracing procedures, are just a few of the failures we have witnessed in the past 9 months. In just one week, we have lost 8 doctors and many other healthcare workers. In a country with one doctor to 6000 patients ratio , we should be taking this matter more seriously. An estimated 800 doctors, 600 nurses and 320 clinical officers have contracted the coronavirus, and thirty-one healthcare workers have died since March. We must address this national emergency. 

Sadly, even with a record high of fatalities of almost 100 deaths in a week, we have observed a waning of adherence to Public Health Guidelines, led by those in positions of leadership. Political COVID-19 super-spreader events continue unabated increasing the spread of the disease in many counties in Nyanza and Western Kenya, which had witnessed fairly small numbers in the past. Our schools have now become the epicentre of COVID-19 infections and yet the Jubilee administration continues to burry its head in the sand. 

KLM condemns the half-measured responses by the Jubilee administration to the gravest pandemic of our generation. We call for the immediate implementation of the following measures:

1. Hire more health workers to ensure every Kenyan has access to the highest attainable standard of healthcare, as envisioned in the constitution;
2. Provide adequate and quality personal protective equipment to all health workers;
3. Implement the compensation plan for health workers and pay salaries on time, just as we pay Governors, Members of Parliament and other leaders;
4. Equip COVID-19 isolation facilities to respond to the surge in infections;
5. Coordinate testing contact tracing and surveillance of COVID-19 infections;
6. Fast track the formation of a constitutional Health service Commission to sort the perennial health workers issues and ensure quality health services;
7. Arrest and prosecute all COVID-19 billionaires and redirect the stolen funds to support the medical professionals;
8. Immediately cease all political rallies and activities known to spread COVID-19, including the BBI project;

Finally, Wakenya, we have a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the healthcare workers.  We must adhere to preventive measures such as the use of face masks, washing hands and social-distancing. The Jubilee administration has told and shown us that we are on our own. Let us believe them and take care of ourselves and others. 

Let us honor the memory of  Dr Emarah Ashraf, Dr. Hudson Inyangala, Dr. Jackline Njoroge, Dr Faith Kanjiru Mbuba, Dr Hudson Alumera,  Dr. Vladimir Schuckin, Dr. Robert Ayisi , Dr Daniel Alushula, Dr. Adisa Lugaliki, Dr. Ndambuki Mboloi and the twenty-one other healthcare workers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Let us take basic precautions. Let us keep away from the COVID-19 super-spreader political rallies organized by politicians, who have access to the best medical facilities. 

We are on our own. Let’s take care of ourselves and of each other. 

16 November 2020

Last week, the government announced a raft of measures to control the spread of COVID-19. These measures reminded us of our collective pain when the repressive Public Order Act was invoked on 27 April 2020 by President Uhuru Kenyatta to allegedly enforce a dusk to dawn curfew to stem the spread of  COVID-19.  It reminded us of how a Public Health crisis had been turned into a Security issue that saw security agencies unleash terror on its citizens that were already dealing with a strange pandemic. A curfew that to date has not been backed by scientific findings or explanation as to how the disease relates to darkness, necessitating absurd night time restrictions while activities during the day especially in the political sphere continue with reckless abandon. 

KLM is horrified by how the State has continuously loosened the leash of the security agencies and allowed the police to mercilessly terrorize and traumatize Kenyans in the name of enforcing the health guidelines. In the last week Kenyans operating small business like bars have run into indescribable losses and trauma after these thugs in uniform reigned terror and in some instances even looted in their so called night operations. Hundreds more have been arrested with the police taking advantage of the pronouncements by their bosses to extort vulnerable Kenyans. This is unacceptable. 

Government officials including the President and his Deputy, consistently violate the public health protocols, without a single reprimand or fine. They hold huge COVID super-spreader rallies and events yet blame the youth for being the violators of heath protocols. They do not wear masks, yet impose fines and use violence against Wananchi in the name of enforcement. Instead of working with Kenyans on the protocols of handling the pandemic, government officials bark out orders and the police wield guns and rungus against a virus. Instead of public health information on the value of wearing masks, what we hear from the government are threats and fines. 

The government has failed in its public messaging on COVID-19 as it preaches water and drinks wine. It has failed to provide basic health education. Kenyans associate COVID-19 with police brutality and orders barked at them during press conferences. Which government arbitrarily penalizes its citizens four times the amount of what most of them earn in a month for not wearing a mask? Which government opens doors for extortion of its people? What would it cost to use civilian rather than militaristic approaches to enforce public health measures? This pandemic offered a lifeline for the nation to come together as one under the new normal but this clueless government instead chose to operate by instilling fear and further widening the gap of the haves and the have nots. 

It is worth remembering that we are 9 months into the COVID-19 global pandemic, yet the Government of Kenya has not put out a plan for properly dealing with this crisis.  Instead of a plan, Kenyans are being promised terror from the illegally constituted Special Enforcement Unit. The country is facing a health pandemic, not a national security threat. We are facing an economic crisis triggered by the theft of public funds and poor economic policies. Kenya does not need a militaristic Special Enforcement Unit to address this. 

KLM calls on the government to immediately halt its draconian COVID-19 measures and demand for:

1.  An end to discriminatory application of COVID-19 control measures;
2. The end to police brutality, extra-judicial killings and extortion, especially of poor youth;
3. The arrest and prosecution of all officers involved in police brutality, extra-judicial killings, property damage and extortion;
4. The immediate scrapping of the Ksh. 20,000 fine imposed on Kenyans and its replacement with issuance of masks and information material on COVID-19; 
5. The end of police involvement in closing down markets, shops, restaurants and bars found to be operating with disregard to the health protocols and allow county health enforcement officers to do their job; 
6. An immediate stop to plans to establish the illegal so-called Special Enforcement Unit.

In preparation for its National Kongamano in December and in response to issues of police brutality and extra-judicial killings, KLM-VUMA shall:

1. Engage the public and institutions working on rule of law and human rights to commence a public interest litigation process to seek justice for all victims of police brutality and extrajudicial killings nationally; 
2. Commence public consultations with interest groups, survivors of police brutality, families of victims and experts to develop a comprehensive plan to overhaul the national police service and align it with the vision in the 2010 Constitution under a KLM-VUMA government; 
3. In the absence of a government comprehensive plan on COVID response measures, KLM will put together a multi-sectoral team to develop a people-centered plan in consultation with WaKenya. 

Finally, KLM wishes to encourage all Kenyans to keep observing and prioritizing the public Health guidelines as this is our collective responsibility. We as a country have faced insurmountable odds but with the Kenyan spirit have emerged victorious; this pandemic will not be an exception. We offer our solidarity to the frontline health workers and Scientists working tirelessly to achieve the much needed breakthrough and relief from this disease. May we all in one accord, in common bond united build and protect our nation together. God bless Kenya.

Participants noted that the economic situation in the country is untenable. Youth unemployment is at a record high, as is the national debt. They noted that the COVID pandemic threatens to exacerbate the economic situation further, increase social unrest and diminish public trust in institutions, if theft of public resources is not curbed. Participants expressed deep regret that Kenyans in the Diaspora continue to be treated as second class citizens noting that ignoring the needs and views of over 3 million Kenyans with a 300 billion annual contribution to the economy is reprehensible. 

KLM-VUMA committed itself to continue working closely with the Diaspora. It will ensure their participation in its political program and ensure their full citizenship rights and interests are taken care of when the movement forms the next government. To ensure full engagement in the work of KLM-VUMA, participants agreed to have regular meetings with Kenyans in the Diaspora. Noting the self-funding model of KLM-VUMA, participants agreed to explore ways of making financial and intellectual contributions to support its work.

KENYANS, DON’T BE FOOLED: REJECT THE BBI NYAYOS!

Kongamano La Mageuzi (KLM) has carefully studied the report of the so-called Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) whose chiefs, President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga launched on 21 October 2020. 

KLM reiterates its total rejection of the BBI. From its outset, it was clear to the KLM membership that the sugarcoated BBI is a semi-clever plot by the ruling elite aimed at self-preservation and perpetuation in power. 

KLM identifies the BBI as one among several mass psychological operations that the Jubilee administration, with the help of its foreign backers has unleashed on Kenyans to manufacture a fake constitutional moment in our country as a prelude to what is clearly an elite plot to defeat and overthrow our progressive Constitution.   

KLM calls on Kenyans to invoke our Chapter 1 collective power, our supremacy and sovereignty to reject the BBI project for the following reasons: 

The BBI PROJECT IS ILLEGAL

The BBI Taskforce: KLM wishes to remind Kenyans that the process used to create the BBI Taskforce was illegal from the start to its end. Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga singularly handpicked members of the BBI Taskforce – all the time in a secretive and opaque manner. KLM believes that membership to the BBI Taskforce was based on the singular criteria of selecting individuals who would, without questioning, deliver a set of pre-determined results that Uhuru, Raila Odinga and their Jubilee Party and opposition ODM intended respectively.

1. No authorizing and guiding law: Article 10 of the Constitution of Kenya decrees rule of law. That means that every action of a public officer must be based and guided by a legally valid law. No law gave Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga the power to unilaterally pick a team to recommend review of the Constitution of Kenya. No law existed or has been passed to guide the activities of BBI. Essentially BBI has operated outside the law and therefore unconstitutional. 
2. Unauthorized expenditure of public funds: The BBI Taskforce and activities supporting it have been fully financed by the State when there was no law anticipating or authorizing public expenditure on the project. Such unlawful use of public funds automatically adds BBI project to the long list of examples of the contempt with which the ruling elite use public money. 
3. Secretive and individualized process: Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga have continued to ask Kenyans to support the outcome of the BBI ‘process’ even when they kept this process and the report a top secret for a long time. This shows a clear and desperate intent to manipulate and manage public reaction to the report instead of, as the Constitution of Kenya requires, making it a transparent, inclusive and an authentically participatory process throughout its course.

BBI PROPOSALS WEAKEN THE CONSTITUTION OF KENYA

KLM notes, overall that the proposals made in the BBI Report would significantly weaken our Constitution and undermine our democracy if implemented. These proposals are especially intended to benefit a few members of the political elite and not for the overall benefit of Kenyans. KLM takes significant issue with the following proposals:

1. Responsibilities of Citizens: We note that the Constitution of Kenya already assigns the highest responsibilities to the citizens – including guarding its supremacy and asserting their sovereignty. The proposed responsibilities on citizens in the BBI report come from a place where the government clearly seems to perceive citizens as subjects who have to be patronized. The proposals also seek to pass responsibilities assigned to public officials back to citizens. These proposals invert and mock the power relations currently provided for by the Constitution with citizens being the sovereigns;  not the people in power upon whom citizens delegate their power.( reversing the will of the people)
2. Parliament: The BBI proposals essentially recommend a significant increase in the size of Parliament at a time Kenyans have consistently voiced concerns about wastage by having a top-heavy and extremely inefficient political system.  We are also concerned that the proposals advocate the creation of an especially complex system of representation. This surrenders significant decisions on inclusion of marginalized groups to political parties, thus removing the current process which has seen an increase in the number of marginalized groups represented, especially at the county level. 
3. The Executive: The BBI proposals make no secret here. The report advocates an agenda to expand the Executive in what is clearly a mission to cater for specific personal interests and egos of individuals driving this process who believe that they, or privileged individuals from their ethnic communities are perpetually owed and entitled to senior state officer positions. In effect, BBI seeks to create a dysfunctional and mongrel Executive with the chilling effect of extending that dysfunctionality to Parliament by requiring cabinet secretaries to also sit in Parliament. Overall, the proposed political structure is irredeemably backward and essentially seeks to interfere with the internal harmony (basic structure) of the Constitution.
4. The Judiciary: We are especially concerned by the changes proposed for the Judiciary. The Judiciary has a critical role to safeguard the rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution. Its independence is paramount. That independence has to be both institutional as well as for individual judges. The two critical elements that guarantee the independence of a judge are expressed in an objective appointment and removal process. The BBI proposal to create a position of Judiciary Ombudsperson nominated and appointed by the President shifts accountability of a Judge from the Constitution to the President since Judges will live in constant fear of being removed by the President’s Ombudsperson if they are seen as making decisions that are unpopular with the President. This cannot and should not be. Further, KLM wishes to remind Kenyans that there already exists the office of the Judiciary Ombudsperson that was set up in 2011.  The BBI proposals are dangerous attempts by the Executive and probably parliament to intrude and subvert the independence of the Judiciary, which as every Kenyan knows has been under constant attack from the two arms of government.  It is very clear that they are revisiting.

Moreover, KLM rejects the ageist proposal of raising the age of qualification of judges by five years. In a country where we have a significant youth bulge, high unemployment and underemployment of young Kenyans, any constitutional provision that makes it more difficult for younger citizens to access public sector service is not only unconscionable but devious. 

1. Devolution: KLM notes that the illusion created that the most consequential proposal in the BBI Report is to require that minimum county allocation under the national shareable revenue be raised to 35%.  This is clearly populist brinkmanship by the captains of the BBI project. This proposal is not as consequential as it sounds. Neither is it a necessary proposal, since at present nothing prevents Parliament and the Executive from making that happen. They can do so without amending the Constitution. What is lacking is political will, which is a behavioral flaw and not a constitutional matter.  
2. The Police Council: The proposed introduction of Police Council undermines the independence of the National Police Service (NPS) and National Police Service Commission (NPSC). This is because by introducing political actors to play a part in decision-making on policing, it would surrender professional decision-making by the police required by the constitution to political whims. Equally, it will blur the chain of command, responsibility and accountability of the police. 
3. Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC): The BBI report eloquently discusses the failures of the IEBC and gives the impression of proposing significant reforms. Yet, sadly, the most fundamental change proposed is one that disenfranchises young people and further excludes minority groups, especially those living near the international boundaries where acquisition of national identification documents is a nightmare. By closing the Register of Voters 6 months (120 days) before an election, many young people will be unnecessarily denied their right to vote. KLM is aware that the failure of the IEBC to finalize the register of voters in advance is due to deliberate measures by those in power to manipulate electoral outcomes and not due to continuous registration of voters. It is clear from the BBI report that there is no intention to address issues of electoral justice. The proposals do not address the fundamental flaws in the IEBC, which are well documented, precisely because the failures are not as a result of constitutional flaws but rather State capture of the IEBC. The BBI report confirms what we have said before, that the electoral injustices our country witnesses are not as a result of gaps in the Constitution, but rather the failure to implement it.

KLM categorically restates its earlier position that at the core of the BBI project is a mission to re-introduce and consolidate the imperial presidency, the very reason why Kenyans fought for decades for a new, democratic and people-centered Constitution. We have no doubt in our minds that the overriding agenda of the BBI is to water down our progressive Katiba and in the process create more eating opportunities for members of the inter-ethnic elite clubs that have dominated state and government power since independence. 

As we restate our total rejection of the BBI project, we endorse what has already been said by many Kenyans that all the good sounding things in the report do not need any changes to our Constitution to achieve. In the same vein, all the horrible proposals made in the report are an exhibit of the mischief behind the entire BBI enterprise.      

It is unforgiveable that our country has continued to experience avoidable political and development stagnation a decade on after promulgation of the Constitution simply because of the selfishness,  incompetence and disregard of rule of law by the ruling elite. We dismiss the BBI project for what it is: a survival stunt by a regime that failed Kenyans. 

KLM therefore calls on Kenyans to treat the BBI project with the contempt it deserves and reject the farce. We call on all active citizens to firmly stand together in defense of the Constitution against all attempts by the ruling elite to overthrow it. 

Further, Kongamano La Mageuzi: 

• Calls for the full implementation of the Constitution and  appeals to Kenyans, in their masses to rise in one accord to promote and support the #TEKELEZAKATIBA ethos and movement;  
• Calls on President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga to immediately stop the BBI project shenanigans, put Kenya first and stop further waste of public resources to subvert our Constitution; and  
• Encourages the Presidency of Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto to resign should they find it impossible to fulfil their oaths of office in which they swore to govern in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of Kenya without fear, favor, affection or ill-will. 

Kongamano La Mageuzi shall continue its work of bringing together all progressive Kenyan initiatives, individuals, movements, associations and political parties to provide the much needed transformational alternative political leadership that will defend our Constitution. 

We will continue our fight to totally defeat the BBI project and to work together with Kenyans of goodwill to banish from public office all those who continue to undermine our sovereignty and suppress our potential for progress as a nation. 

WE REJECT THE BBI NYAYOS!

KONGAMANO LA MAGEUZI