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| UhuRaila on Wednesday during the launch of BBI signature collection drive at KICC. (Photo/PSCU) |
President Uhuru Kenyatta accompanied by ODM leader Raila Odinga on Wednesday launched the BBI signature collection drive at KICC grounds where they called on Kenyans to support the initiative.
During the event that was conspicuously snubbed by DP William Ruto, the duo noted that BBI if, adopted, will redefine Kenya's politics while ensuring there will be peace in future.
"This document is supposed to treat the problems and challenges that face us as a nation. Let us not take it as a divisive document or one that is going to contain all our issues because at different stages in nation’s history there will come others… in America after 200 years they are on the 37th amendment,” said Kenyatta," Uhuru is quoted in parts by Citizen Digital as saying.
Raila on his part would maintain his divisive "nobody can stop reggea" rhetoric saying that the country was set for a new journey.
"I appeal to the patriotic Kenyans to come out in record numbers and append their approval in a record time so that we move to the next chapter… There comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular but because it is right," said Raila.
My Take
The launch of the BBI signature collection exercise serves as the last nail on the coffin on all the attempts and appeals to ammend the document and come up with a consensual one that is at least agreeable to the majority, if not all.
There is no doubt that UhuRaila will now be drumming support for the document to be adopted as it is despite a sizeable part of the country's population including religious leaders, raising serious concerns with some of the provisions in the over 200-page document.
Unfortunately, all that is gone with the wind and no longer tenable. UhuRaila have definitely opted to throw out the baby and the bathwater by closing the window that would have seen the BBI ammended to a consensual document that would accomodate all Kenyans. As it is, the document has been thrown to the masses with all the divisive vitriolic garbage in it to begin the adoption process.
Ironically, it is the same document that in Uhuru's words that "will treat the challenges and problems that we face as a nation." Nothing could be further from the truth!
I will submit the opposite. BBI is the last stroke that will break the camel's back. There is nothing uniting about it and it has no single prescription to the country's historical challenges and problems.
BBI is simply a smokescreen to blurr Uhuru's 8 years of failed promises and runaway inepitude crowned by widespread graft. It is also a Raila's decoy to assure him a soft landing in State House come 2022.
That is why there is this unwarranted desperation in UhuRaila's camps to have it rushed and adopted ahead of 2022. There is simply no time to waste on 'useless' amendments when the two know that it is in the BBI where their crumbled political futures get to resuscitate.
Otherwise, why force it into the people's throats instead of allowing them time to agree on the contentious issues? Why the hurry? Is it not a people's document as you want us to believe? Is this country going to sublime in 2022 if the BBI will not have been adopted by then? And most importantly of all, did we even ask UhuRaila to give us this BBI and before 2022 for that matter?
As you ponder over that, it is my humble submission that we are much better of without the document. The nonsense and shenanigans that we continue to witness on the political playing field crop up by day, are all as a result of the frivolous and the unsolicited BBI.
Closing Argument: The Cat & the Ailing Birds
I equate the UhuRaila project to that hungry cat which on hearing that local birds were ailing, he dressed up as a doctor and went to call on them. He knocked on the door of the aviary saying that if they were ill he would be happy to minister to them.
However, the wise birds pretty aware of what the cat was up to, replied that they were all well and would continue to be so as long as the cat went away and left them alone.
And that is our situation currently and what will become of us post-BBI politics based on the direction that we take.
Kenya will be well as long as the BBI nonsense does not see the light of the day. Yes, if the birds reject the quackish doctor whom they have not sought any appointment with. But will Kenyans be as wise as the birds and shun the quack? Time is the answer!