Goldenberg Inquiry Died Long Ago

By Adongo Ogony

It looks like we are going to need a Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg Inquiry. Can you believe that? Welcome to the strange world of the Narc regime.

I don’t know what is more annoying. The Kibaki government appealing against the court order to get Moi to testify or the charade of LDP and Kanu politicians defending Moi and telling him to defy the order.

As soon as the court ruling was announced last week, the Attorney General, Amos Wako, the chief legal advisor to the president and the man charged with the duty of protecting us from thieves and other bad people moved to court to appeal against the court order. What does this mean? It means the very government, which is investigating the Goldenberg scam, does not want to talk to Moi, who is the second most important figure on the inquiry after Pattni. Go figure.

Actually the government can solve this easy. Since they don’t want to cross examine Moi, why not bring him to the inquiry and tell him to go home. That will satisfy the court order. The order does not specify what questions to ask him. Just ask him a few things, how his chicken and goats are doing in Kabarak and let the man walk. Then bring in Saitoti and ask him how his ostrich farm is coming along and tell him to go back to Jogoo House and run our schools. Why the hassle of going to court and wasting Wako’s precise time. The court is trying to marry two partners who don’t want to get married. Even in forced marriages, one party must be at least interested. The government does not want to question Moi and Moi doesn’t want to talk to them. End of story.

The LDP and Kanu are playing simple tribal politics for the Kalenjin vote and it is despicable. But the political picture is much more complicated than that.

I have a solution for this morass called Goldenberg. First Moi should be arrested and charged with grand theft of public funds. The Bosire commission has provided enough evidence for that. Whether he goes to give evidence at the inquiry or not doesn’t matter, in fact it is in his interest to do so.

Moi should be formally charged in a court of law based on public evidence that we all know. I was asking if we have a citizen’s arrest in Kenya so that a group of Kenyans should apprehend the former president and take him to court. The man should be defending himself in court of law not in public rallies.

If we cannot do that then stop fooling around spending probably billions of shillings chasing bad money with good money. Between Khaminwa and Kamau Kuria alone we must have spent hundreds of millions. The two were reportedly given 15 million each as a signing bonus in a secret deal with the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Remember the one they give professional athletes. Yap that is what we gave the two heavies to help us get our money back and they make a million each a month and they have been at it for what 24 months and counting and at the end of the day President Kibaki will get a report which, if the past is anything to go by, he will safely put under lock and do nothing.

I am sure very soon somebody or some group are going to go to court to file private charges against the ex-president if the government doesn’t want to deal with him.

Yes we can and should make a deal with Moi, but trying to pretend he did nothing wrong is insulting our collective memory as Kenyans. I for one see nothing to be gained by putting the ex president in prison. But please spare us the crap that we should respect the office of the president. My advice, yes respect the office while you are still holding it and we will respect you when you leave, but if you abuse and misuse the office don’t talk to us about respect.

Moi handed over power and that bought him a lot of political capital. Kenyans respect that and I have said many times in that regard he did a lot better than Kibaki and his crew who refused to give us a new constitution even after delegates at Bomas threw out their demands.

Let Moi return the cash and chota some land for the public good and then we can spare him the humiliation of spending his last years in Kamiti.

But that really is not the story. The real story is that the Goldenberg Inquiry is a farce. The Kibaki people realized they made a huge mistake right from the moment they started the Inquiry and have been going through the motions when they absolutely have no intention of holding anybody accountable. I mean Saitoti is one of the key suspects in the whole saga and yet he remains a key figure in Kibaki’s cabinet. He (Saitoti) bought his place their and is one of the money men for NAK, making him untouchable.

People should understand something about Kibaki and his government. For them appearance is more important than substance. They think as long as they make Kenyans believe that something is being done, it really doesn’t matter that nothing is actually being done.

The genesis of the fake Inquiry dates back right when Kibaki took power. Once the DP wing of Narc decided they were going to hoard power and screw everybody up, they realized they are going to need Kanu. At the same time the LDP upon realizing they had been conned by the DP tricksters started to get cozy with Kanu. In my assessment the split in Narc is the best gift our politicians gave Moi and Kanu and the rest is history.

Everything that is messed up in the country goes back to fallout between DP and LDP. That is why we cannot get a new constitution, it also the reason the Truth Justice and Reconciliation initiative is dead and buried. When this problem started most Kenyans dismissed and even ridiculed LDP’s complains about the MoU. Sadly that MoU will have a lot to do with the Kibaki legacy, which looks pretty, messed up right now. Everyone is chasing the Kanu vote, even in parliament and the one untouchable figure in Kanu is Moi, forget Uhuru and Biwott.

The other reality is that the Narc regime is just as corrupt as the Moi regime. After the Anglo Leasing saga and stalled Ndungu report we know now for sure that the war against corruption has died a natural death. The only thing happening is that a lot of people are making a lot of money pretending to be fighting corruption. The anti-corruption industry is in full bloom and the people well connected with the powers that be are swimming in the gravy train all the way to the bank. At the rate we are going we are going to need hundreds of inquiries to unmask the great Kenyan tragedy – the unmitigated theft of public resources by the mighty and the powerful.

Did your hear about a month ago Githongo saying the Anglo Leasing report is just about to be released. Expect the same announcement a few months from now. We have absolute jokers and reckless mercenaries running the affairs of the nation and it is not funny. But there is always the ballot box. It beats the courts any day.