Leave Uhuru alone and fix what is broken in Kenya

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Nandi Senator Samson Cherarkey has reportedly filed a motion seeking to strip retired President Uhuru Kenyatta of his pension and retirement benefits, citing the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act as justification.

Before senators consider the motion, it is worth asking a fundamental question: does Cherarkey understand the law he is invoking, or is he just playing to a political gallery that has decided Uhuru is the enemy?

Section 4(1) of the Presidential Retirement Benefits Act empowers the National Assembly, through a two-thirds majority, to halt or vary a former president’s retirement package if he is found to be actively involved in the activities of a political party. 

That much is factually correct. But what Cherarkey and his allies conveniently omit is the deeper constitutional question that legal scholars have already raised: Whether such a provision can survive scrutiny under Article 38, which guarantees every Kenyan — retired presidents included — the right to participate in political processes. 

Law Society of Kenya president Charles Kanjama has stated plainly that a retired president retains political rights, and that the constitutionality of withdrawing pension on the basis of political activity has never been tested in court. To threaten enforcement of an untested and potentially unconstitutional provision is, simply, political intimidation. 

The comparisons this country’s constitution invites are worth pointing out. Kenya’s constitutional architecture was, to a greater extent, modelled on American democratic principles. In the United States, former presidents openly campaign for their parties, endorse candidates, address political rallies, and weigh in on matters of national policy. Barack Obama barnstormed across America for Democratic candidates years after leaving office, and no senator introduced a motion to stop his pension. 

If Kenya aspires to the democratic standard it borrowed from, it cannot selectively apply freedoms depending on whether the retired president’s politics are convenient for the current administration.

Uhuru Kenyatta is, above everything else, a Kenyan citizen holding a valid voter’s card. That status alone confers rights that no parliamentary motion can strip away without first dismantling the constitutional order. He is not responsible for the health sector’s dysfunction, the deterioration of public education, the crushing cost of living, or the unemployment that drives young Kenyans toward crime and despair.

These are the crises demanding legislative energy and executive attention. Stopping Uhuru’s pension will not lower the price of unga or create one job.

Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot warned that Uhuru would be treated like any other political opponent if he ‘misbehaves’. 

That is precisely the point. Treat Uhuru like any other citizen, which means respecting his constitutional rights, paying what the Constitution prescribes, and turning the government’s considerable attention toward the real and urgent problems that Kenyans hired it to solve. UDA should stop chasing its own shadow.

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