Katiba @16: The unfinished business

Thursday last week, August 27, saw various events held to commemorate and reflect on the gains, losses and challenges since the promulgation of the ‘new’ Constitution of Kenya 16 years ago.

It was indeed an epochal moment on August 27, 2010, when President Mwai Kibaki held aloft a document heralding a new constitutional order; one that promised a clean break from a past defined by the imperial presidency, a centralised command system, Executive overreach, grand corruption, human rights abuses, and scant regard for the rights, aspirations, desires and feelings of the people.

Katiba@16 last week provided the opportunity for national debate on whether one of the most progressive constitutions in the world has lived up to the promise.

Kenyans gathered in different venues to celebrate the Constitution, and also to discuss 16 years under the new dispensation.

The premier event was staged at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, a government event starring President William Ruto and his usual supporting cast of praise singers. Most of the architects of the 2010 Constitution, human rights advocates, civil society and others who played key roles in the quest for a just society were notably absent or relegated to the fringes.

Human rights

There were parallel events elsewhere where various interest groups, not invited to the government gathering, held their own deliberations. Disclosure: I was a guest that Thursday night at a forum hosted by The Youth Agenda, Katiba Institute and other actors in civil society, where I was honoured as one of the 2026 recipients of the Katiba Roll of Honour/Profiles of Courage award.

I was selected to be amongst the six honorees for half a lifetime of writings that championed constitutionalism, the role of law, human rights, democracy and justice, often to the great discomfort of those who wield political power.

Whether Yours Truly deserves to be stood alongside past recipients such as Willy Mutunga, Yash Pal Ghai, Feroze Nowrojee, John Khaminwa and other brave heroes of the quest for a just constitutional order, or more recent heroes of the 2024 GenZ revolt such as Hanifa Adan and Wanjira Wanjiru might be questionable, and for others to judge. Suffice to say, I was both honoured and humbled.

That was an aside. The real point here is that at his event broadcast live earlier in the day, President Ruto said all the nice things about the Constitution.

The man who led the “No” brigade during the 2010 referendum—opposing a progressive Constitution that sought to forever banish dictatorship, one-man rule, and other remnants of the single-party era—has come around to accept the realities of today.

He even acknowledged, and presumably with regret, that his administration had mishandled the GenZ uprising where disproportionate and deadly force was unleashed against mostly youthful demonstrators, resulting in a substantial number of fatalities.

The president, who has previously supported murderous police action on demonstrators he condemned as treasonous and anarchists, now said that the youthful protests were driven by genuine grievances and the need to be heard, and supported by constitutional rights to speak, assemble, demonstrate, picket and present petitions.

However, the president spoke after a long and orchestrated procession of speakers and event moderators had visibly tried to steer conversation towards the need to curtail public exercise of those same constitutional rights. A carefully selected list of speakers and panellists laboured to justify violent police crackdowns on demonstrations, making specific reference to the Gen Z protests and subsequent expressions of citizen fury.

Tough police action on goons

This raises the question of whether the president speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Even before the Katiba Day forum, he had been publicly condemning and demanding tough police action on the deployment of goons to counter political foes, but it remains apparent that the violent armed thugs at the service of his campaign machinery remain above the law.

In fact, President Ruto’s Katiba Day pronouncements were barely out of his mouth before criminal elements working for the ruling party, who enjoy police protection, were deployed to disrupt opposition rallies in Migori and Meru.

Fealty to the Constitution must go beyond mere words. Those sworn to obey, preserve, protect and defend must live up to the solemn oath, or step aside.

If President Ruto is serious, he must disown and sideline those in his court driving violent anti-constitutional actions against the opposition.

He must also overhaul the justice, law and order machinery, so that the entire police top command is removed and prosecuted over collusion with political goons, as well as the notorious abductions, illegal confinements, torture and murders that have become hallmarks of the Kenya Kwanza regime.

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Mr Gaitho, an independent journalist, is former NMG Managing Editor for Special Projects. [email protected].

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