Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) Secretary General Francis Atwoli, is a study in befuddlement. Last week, he was on a local radio station, rambling for want of something to say as opposed to having something to say.
Mr Atwoli wants presidential term limits abolished because, in his utopian world, development is subject to longevity in leadership, and the justification for that is his long stay at the helm in Cotu.
The voluble trade unionist waxed lyrical about President William Ruto being the best president Kenya has ever had and urged him not to take his foot off the gas pedal. Moments later, he took off on a tangent: Dr Ruto is overworking and should take a break to avoid breaking down, Ruto should empower his Cabinet Secretaries and stop taking on too much.
Indefatigable Atwoli is categorical that a president needs uninterrupted 20 to 30 years to make an impact. Almost immediately, he veers off to praise Wycliffe Oparanya, the first Kakamega Governor for achieving a lot in just 10 years. To make head or tail of Atwoli’s musings requires a lot of effort.
At best, his pedestrian argument in favour of abolishing presidential term limits is so shallow, it borders on the jejune. He is convinced that Egypt, Algeria and Morocco have achieved infrastructural milestones because they don’t have presidential term limits.
If someone, however, were to task him to explain the reasons for the Arab Spring protests, he would have probably drawn a blank. Atwoli should be reminded that the absence of term limits in the countries he cited, and the attendant complacency in leadership, are responsible for high unemployment rates among the youth, rising food prices, poverty, corruption, inequality, authoritarianism, lack of political freedoms and police brutality, which sparked the protests. In Tunisia and Egypt, the presidents were ousted.
And quite conveniently for his vacuous argument, Atwoli forgot to mention the impressive development attained in countries that have adopted term limits, some as low as two, four-year terms like the US, that have achieved a lot, primarily because institutions in those countries are empowered while ours are being systemically emasculated to create demigods to whom hapless elected leaders must supplicate to get development funds.
Selfishness and myopia conspire to force a few people into worshipping individuals at the expense of building strong institutions. The President doesn’t have to practically preside over everything. He would do well to give direction, encouragement and leave institutions to actualise whatever vision he possesses. That way, the absence of an individual would have no bearing on the success of any initiative.
Combined systematic and systemic dismantling of institutions is the genesis of our tribulations. Absolute power, we know, corrupts, which is why Africa’s despotic presidents are among the most inept in the world. They sit on gigantic natural resources yet lack the will, knowledge and wherewithal to exploit them for their peoples benefit.
Atwoli embodies all that is wrong with this country, which holds it back. While many are inclined to take his side on the menace of hawkers being everywhere, his prescription does not address why hawkers occupy every available space in towns and cities. Rather, he believes in optics more than genuine efforts to improve the welfare of the ordinary Kenyans forced to do hawking in order to put food on the table. To kick hawkers out of the city centre just to make it look clean is simplistic.
To Atwoli and his ilk, the Constitution is nothing but a decorative accoutrement that can be discarded at will. Like Donald Trump, he believes his conscience is all that matters, which is why he emphasised that were he to become president, he would abolish presidential term limits whether Kenyans like it or not. Atwoli’s take on politics, more often than not, reflects ideological bankruptcy and overconfidence even where evidence suggests otherwise. In recent years, Atwoli has spoken with a lot of confidence on political matters, but evidently, his crystal ball is in a permanent state of malfunctioning.
