Power, they say, is transient but justice is perpetual. Chinua Achebe’s immortalised Aneke the bird also quipped that “since men have learnt to shoot without missing, birds have also learnt to fly without perching.” Seems like the powers that be are increasingly dealing with the perpetuity of justice in the fashion of the sharp shooting men and the never perching bird. In fact, just like news, seems like we are bastardizing justice and what is just or not appears to be a function of political contestations. Very bewildering and worrying indeed.
In the run-up to the general election and even after, the political talk was awash with allegations that some big-name politicians were forced to be in certain political coalitions because the political powers back then wielded some stick that whipped everyone into a political formation. What Kenyans are yet to see or hear are the allegations that we weighed on these politicians who were allegedly forced to aligned.
What were these cases that made them sacrifice their freedom to associate and why were they giving in to power that is transient rather than prove their innocence. Is it not worth finding out what it is that they were guilty so much so that they had to to succumb to the political expediency of other politicians? And now that we have a government of the hustlers and by the hustlers, is it not right that some of these folks go ahead and tell us the real story? Or is the story incriminating them so much so that they would rather join the current regime and stay the issues?
In the immediate aftermath of the elections, we saw crossing over from Azimio to Kenya Kwanza and hot on the heals we have witnessed what many have called freedom. However, the optics and the perception of freedom seem to be expedient. The germane concern in many Kenyans mind is what then spins the wheels of justice. More so when cases of the political bigwigs of the previous regime are resurrected and expedited with serious implications. The crux herein is whether the few that have been convicted to years in jail or given the option out of this world fine are guilty of grave violations of the law or guilty of being part of the other political side of the divide. The inverse is even a lot more confounding as politicians aligned to the current regime have their cases dropped like they are hot.
What is of interest to many Kenyans along the streets is whether these cases are dropped because it is the accused persons “time to be free” or because of proof of innocence. Your guess is as good as mine! Interestingly, the perception out there is that some of the big offices charged with significant roles in the dispensation of justice seem to be listening to public noise. They have made their bed and now they’ve got to sleep on it. When as a country we resort to scrolling the wheels of justice along political whirlwind and public outcry we lose it and lose it completely. The conundrum of acting on the whips of the public in one case is the Pandora’s box of the bird that has to fly without perching and the shooters that have to shoot without missing. The consequences include the blurred lines between cases anchored on fidelity to the rule of law and the ones driven by “it’s our time to be free” mantra? This bastardising of the wheels of justice portends a very bleak democracy for us and a dangerous place to be; unfortunately, it does appear that this is the trajectory we are setting ourselves up to and the time to act is now.
–Hesbon Hansen Owilla
The author is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies and Political communication.
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