By Joe Modie
The Court of Appeal yesterday pronounced itself on the BBI project: reggae has been brought to a screeching halt.
And while there are those who will celebrate the ruling, it should hereby be made exceedingly clear that their frenzied celebrations are not informed by a love for the Constitution.
Far from it, theirs is based purely on partisan politics. Yesterday the Net was full praise for one Justice Kiage, not for the soundness of his ruling, but for the fact that he waxed poetic in the delivery of his ruling.
That is well and good; poetry is good but remember, it cuts both ways. As a literary device, it can be employed in support of either side of the BBI debate; for or against.
So much for poetry
Flowery poetic language aside, the inescapable fact is that BBI has all along been about the 2022 election.
There has been a feeling, in the anti-BBI camp (Tanga tanga), that had it passed, it would have given the Handshake team an unfair advantage in 2022 and that explained their strident opposition to BBI.
However, once the dust settles and reality starts checking in, those pro and anti BBI will start seeing things in different light. For purposes of this review we will cast our spotlight on those who were anti BBI.
By now it is a well-known fact that Deputy President William Ruto has been violently opposed to BBI and his social media post on yesterday’s ruling states as much.
“GOD, our Heavenly FATHER has come THROUGH for Kenya and STOPPED the COALITION of the known, the mighty and the powerful from destroying our CONSTITUTION. Our GOD, help the ALLIANCE of the unknown, the jobless, the Hustlers and the struggling farmers to now ENGINEER our ECONOMY from BOTTOM-UP,” wrote DP Ruto at around 8 pm.
The irony is not lost to keen observers that the Ruto that opposes BBI is the same Ruto that is desperate for the Mt Kenya vote.
Without the Mt Kenya vote Ruto is nothing.
BBI, on the other hand had promised a lot of goodies to Mt Kenya; chief among them an increase in CDF allocations as well as increases in the number of constituencies in Mt Kenya region – the so called one-man-one-vote.
Today, due to the high population density in Mt Kenya, constituency bursary allocations are as low as sh2,500 per student, yet there are constituencies – especially those in North Eastern – that get as much as sh100,000 per student.
With BBI, the people of Mt Kenya had been assured that they will be at par with their North Eastern counterparts.
Now that is no more
Remember Ruto is not the only presidential candidate eyeing the Mt Kenya region – which, for now, appears like it won’t have a presidential candidate.
All presidential hopefuls have been salivating for the Mt Kenya vote, including Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, who has appeared in Samido’s video reminding the people of Mt Kenya that he is their ‘in-law’.
So, what makes Ruto think that he has Mt Kenya already sewn up in his favour – the promise of wheelbarrows?
While Ruto has literally pitched camp in Mt Kenya, spreading his Hustler gospel for the last four years, his opponents have been waiting for the BBI greenlight to start offering a counter narrative.
Now that the courts have virtually sounded the death knell on BBI, its proponents, especially in Mt Kenya, BBI proponents will not take it lying down; they will devise new ways of countering Ruto.
Someones life has just got harder
If Nyeri Town MP, Ngunjiri Wambugu’s sentiments, immediately after the Court of Appeal ruling was made, are anything to go by, they will now embark on telling the people of Mt Kenya that Ruto, who pretends to love them so much, is behind the campaign to keep them perpetually under penury.
“THE GAME JUST GOT MORE COMPLICATED. The 2022 Mt Kenya expectations have just been defined. To get the Mt Kenya vote one must now guarantee that their government will deliver what BBI was meant to deliver to us,” wrote Wambugu, in obvious reference to Ruto. “It’s going to get very interesting from here. And someone’s life has just got much harder.”
If Wambugu and co hit the ground running, like Ruto has done in the last four years, it is patently clear that Ruto’s hustler/wheelbarrow message in Mt Kenya, will be obliterated within no time.
Mt Kenya will effectively have been opened up to presidential candidates who will offer the region what BBI had promised them. Anything short of this will pave the way for a homegrown Mt Kenya candidate, and the voting patterns in the region are well known.
Clearly, as far as the failed BBI is concerned, the law of unintended consequence will kick in, moving forward.