Watching the Parliament vetting of nominees to the cabinet this week, one cannot fail to see the change in the colour of the eyes and the sudden weakness in the body of MPs.
They’re no longer growling at the rapid sighting of lies, half-truths and false impressions by the revolving occupants of the hot seat inside the vetting chamber.
Questions about net worth are being abandoned at face value with no further interrogation of revenue streams.
If integrity was the cornerstone of the grilling session, then those currently discussing the change of the constitution should consider establishing a new office of the Inquisitor General to relieve Parliament of this painful rigour of learning a new body language.
Something must have happened after the infamous invasion of the historic national sanctuary along Parliament Road last month. MPs are now visibly scared about public greetings, or tired of being the centre of negative attention, or both.
At the committee digging into the suitability of the cabinet nominees, there exists no semblance of spark to justify any fear of nullification or interest towards taking responses through a screening tool manufactured to winnow rough chaff from fine grain.
Appointees are exhibiting a level of comfort that would make a leather sofa jealous while mostly reading from a prepared script, lending credence to the assertion that one of the criteria to pass the interview was the nominees’ ability to come up with ideas on how to fight brain drain.
Had disinterest in public vetting been an Olympic sport, countries would have withdrawn from competing to save their national resources, as there would have been no contest on where all the medals would be going to.
Kenya has come a long way in instilling the fear of the Lord in public servants as to keep them on tapping their toes on the race track. Successive generations have applied innovative tools in drawing a target on the backs of public servants to keep them on the road to heaven with little distractions from time immemorial.
From roadside declarations to threats of impeachment to the power of recall, the transparency and accountability toolbox has been the most active equipment in the Kenyan government stores until the Gen Z protests came along last month with face-to-face greetings – shaking the foundations of the governance pillar and sending all actors back to the drawing board for new tips on how to catch up.
Never in the history of good governance did MPs ever imagine they would jump from the back of the queue into the front row, in under two years, to become the most sought-after example of how not to bury your head in the sand like most egg-laying mammals.
For a long time, Parliament has had the enviable reputation of being the public watchdog against executive excesses, a pivotal role it has played albeit with mixed results, until the hustler administration checked into office putting this reputation to the ultimate test.
Last month, when Gen Z in Kenya announced their intention to rally around the rejection of the Finance Bill 2024 to remind MPs on the real identity of their bosses, they were dismissed as a passing bunch of cumulonimbus clouds whose raindrops would not be enough to germinate a row of drought resistant legumes – until they descended into Nairobi CBD waving the national flag in chorus, and apologies quickly started streaming in thick and fast, and with it a change in the national mood of everyone who had ever written them off.
There’s wisdom in MPs quietly washing their hands and shepherding the cabinet nominees back to their owner for Gen Z to knock at them together again. Under the prevailing circumstances, where everyone has been forced to fight back from their own corners, inheriting someone else’s integrity baggage would be a surefire path to self-infliction, if they survive the mental breakdown that comes with having nightmares of their property being visited by aggrieved members of the public and their kith and kin receiving a barrage of reminders to railroad their benefactors before the public does it for them with catastrophic consequences.
Watching the MPs running questions through the cabinet nominees this week, you get the latent feeling that if the president wanted a rubber stamp to kick start his rematch with Gen Z, no one is going to stand in his way – not even MPs who are visibly uninterested in getting into proxy wars when they have their own fights to prepare for the next time the waving fists roll into town again. There is a famous gospel track – that strutted the Kenyan music scene long before Gen Z knew how to read and write – reminding card-carrying Christians of the dangers of collective responsibility when it comes to the wages of sin. Na kila mtu atauchukua, mzigo wake mwenyewe. Na kila mtu atatoa, habari zake mwenyewe mbele za Mungu. Siku hio inakuja. Monitoring public forums for comments on the cabinet vetting this week, there is foregone consensus that the window dressing happening in Parliament will end with the desired outcome for the appointing authority, explaining why the rate of disinterest in what’s currently going on inside the chambers has soared a mile high.
You could tell that a national consensus has been arrived at for everyone to save their batteries for another round of public vigilance, with parliament signing off the vetting books for the president to have back his rope that he had thrown at MPs. There is still hope that someone at State House can remove the cobwebs from the eyes of the president to help him see that he might have won the battle with Gen Z but the war is far from over. Any advisor close to the president right now would be better placed saving their jobs by moving from centre back to the forward line to amplify the goals Gen Z are lining up to score before they hit the onion bag again. There is nothing stopping this pack of energized groups from running this heated marathon till 2027 without missing a heartbeat or stopping for another water break. They have age, agility, history and the country on their side.
The president only has his advisors and beneficiaries of the UDA internal carnage on his side – the latter being under serious contention on current form, as witnessed by the latest push and pull to save the ruling coalition from coming apart at the seams.
If numbers alone are what guarantees an election outcome, even bookmakers would be foolhardy to include this as a contest.
