Politicians must not derail Constitution

Hardly a week into the new year and the political landscape is awash with debate on presidential transition that is due in 2022.

Distinct camps have emerged and the environment is bound to get toxic.

Paradoxically, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) that was crafted as a vehicle to end rancour and violence that attend to every electoral cycle and secure national unity is increasingly becoming divisive.

First, there is a narrative being weaved around the supposed real objective of the BBI.

That it is a deal between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga to create positions and entrench themselves in power.

In that scheme, Mr Odinga would be supported to become President and Mr Kenyatta Prime Minister.

Concomitant to that, Deputy President William Ruto is to be banished and derailed from ascending to the presidency.

Whereas there is no evidence of that plot, the account is alive and, arising from it, political players are forming camps and seeking to rally their supporters around that. Matters have been made worse by the fact that neither President Kenyatta nor Mr Odinga has categorically repudiated the storyline.

Political formations and realignments is not our business.

Indeed, political players have their unfettered right to organise in the best way they deem fit.

However, our concern is that nobody is giving attention to what matters.

In the first place, what do those politicians seek to do with power?

Is it acquiring power for own sake? Second, the debate about BBI is getting derailed. No substantive discussion obtains, and therein lies the danger.

Voters risk being railroaded and made to support what they do not understand.

Which is what politicians are adept at. Yet when things go wrong, the voters complain.

Second, the transition debate is being obscured and perverted.

When in the 1990s and even before the current Constitution Kenyans determined they wanted a presidential two-term limit, the goal was to institutionalise good governance.

That wisdom obtains to date. So when we hear some political players and other leaders hankering for change of presidential term limit to allow President Kenyatta to continue in power ridiculously because of age; or purporting to have him contend for the yet-to-be established premiership, they are missing the point.

That is back-pedalling and seeking to return the country to the dark old days.

Put together, the prevailing debate is the beginning of descent to tyranny and dictatorship.

Unfortunately, alternative voices like the faiths, private sector, professionals and civil society are muted.

The public must come out to ask questions and demand credible answers.

Politicians must be stopped in their tracks as they make designs and seek to define a path that does not serve our collective interest.