Resign; Church tells Kenyan President

BY MASEME MACHUKA IN NAIROBI

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has been asked to dissolve government and resign to save the country from degenerating into a failed state.

The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) termed cabinet chaired by the president and the Prime minister Raila Odinga’s decision to recommend the Truth commission to settle the post poll chaos as an “act of subverting justice and indicative of a country that is regressing into a failed state.”

NCCK Secretary General Canon Rev Peter Karanja said the implications of negligence of government in dealing with post poll chaos were shocking.

“Despite assurances by the president that he will address transitional justice, famine and hunger, ethnicity, unemployment, insecurity, constitutional reforms, governance has not been addressed,” he said.

“Considering that president Kibaki has been in office president for seven years can he truly promise to do in two years what he has failed to do in the seven? In our assessment, we have found that at the heart of the problems bedeviling our country is a culture of impunity founded on unbridled selfishness and greed of the political leadership.

Referring the issue of TJRC and our Courts added the clergy was tantamount to “systematic subversion of the rule of law.”

“Dear Mr president and Prime minister, it will be recorded in history that it was during your time that leadership failed and betrayed Kenyans. Upon your hands and consciences will be tears and pains of all Kenyans who have, continue to, and in future suffer for your failure to defend justice and stand up for this nation,” added Karanja.

Flanked by Chairman Rev Charles Kibicho and Secretary Olive Kisaka, the church now wants the president and the PM to stand up and stop acting to the whims of some political; leaders who have held them hostage.

“You (president and PM) have allowed others to manipulate you, just as you manipulated them. Your admission that the Judiciary, Police and Investigative arms of government that they are incompetence is the final confirmation that Kenya is close to becoming a failed state…ask you to honorably resign and allow Kenyans to chose a new leadership that will steer this country away from impunity and the high potential of collapse,” added the cleric.    

The congregation that has collected signatures that were taken to the International Criminal Court asking for its intervention said that the cabinet was reflective of Terror rather than an asset.

“The cabinet has allowed its personal greed and interests to the point that they can no longer recognize that Kenya was headed to for destruction. By not supporting the decision not to dispense justice with regard to post poll voice you have taken upon your hands the blood of the 1,300 Kenyans who died and the thousands of displaced person suffering to date,” he added.

NCCK underscored the need for the whole cabinet to resign for their continued hold to power “will results in destruction, blood shed and death. Your greed and selfishness and failed leadership has primed this nation for an out break of vicious violence.”

The council rallied Kenyans and the Civil Society to join forces with all meaning Kenyans to put pressure for the intervention of ICC to avert a possible bloodbath in 2012.

“We need to reverse this trend of impunity by holding those who masterminded it accountable.”

NCCK wondered why the cabinet settled for TJRC even when it was not among the options of addressing the post poll chaos as recommend by Justice Phillip Waki’s Commission.

In a third round of cabinet sitting after two previous ones deadlocked on whether Kenya to go The Hague way or the local tribunal, cabinet endorsed local trials for post-election violence suspects.

The Cabinet reached the decision after toying with several options including withdrawal from the Rome Statute under Article 127 and repeal of the International Crimes Act, 2008.”

Ends