By KOIGI WAMWERE
In the Mombasa BBI meeting, Raila Odinga was BBI. All who spoke addressed him as the subject of the meeting. Though Raila said the BBI forums were meetings of the people, no common man spoke at the rally. Nor was the meeting for all Kenyans. Only the invited were welcome to speak.
The Mombasa meeting was to promote Pwani regionalism, continued to bury nationalism and sabotaged so-called national unity fuelled by veiled negative ethnicity.
The parliamentary system advocated by ODM, Jubilee and Uhuru-Raila BBI meetings will put national leadership in the hands of five tribal kingpins from five or six major communities, thereby entrenching further ethnic marginalization.
The spirit of Mombasa meeting was undemocratic, silencing the people and excluding many leaders from speaking. If there will be other meetings to debate the BBI, like, during the 2005 referendum, parallel meetings should be allowed to give everybody a voice in the national debate to discuss constitutional changes. If not, BBI will only deliver us the third dictatorship.
Finally, Raila has announced that President Uhuru Kenyatta has instructed him to hold national BBI rallies all over the country. With corruption skyrocketing, is Uhuru using unauthorized state funds to finance their BBI rallies without people’s consent, to lay a foundation for their 2022 presidential campaigns?
