PICTURES: #Uhuru #Kenyatta - a rare civilized #African leader

A black African leader who:

1.  Had the courage to willingly go and attend the ICC in The Hague where he was accused of crimes against humanity.  He defied the discouragement by opportunistic African heads of state who attempted to blackmail him that they had information that the ICC had plans of detaining him.  He was eventually cleared by the ICC and he is not among the lead advocates of pulling out of the ICC.

2.  Presides over a government that made a new constitution that saw the powers of the President trimmed. He heads a government that strictly observes constitutional governance and has not expressed any disaffection with or attempted to amend the Constitution to suit his personal interests.

3.  Heads a government that does not harass, intimidate, physically harm, curtail and detain without trial members of the political opposition.  Unlike in other African countries, under Uhuru, the opposition in Kenya are not enemies.  There is no single opposition leader in detention over politically motivated concocted charges.

4.  Can't influence the court verdict against his election victory petition.  He instead humbled himself and respected the verdict for a repeat of the electoral process.

5.  Presides over a government that arranges general elections that are free, fair, peaceful, and violent free.  He does use the security services in a partisan manner against his political opponents. The security forces are not used to suffocate political dissent.

6.  Presides over a government that guarantees the freedom of assembly, speech, expression, movement, of its citizens.  Throughout the several months of the electoral process, the freedom of Kenyans was not curtailed.  Unlike in other African countries where the terrorism scare is used to curtail freedom of citizens, in Kenya citizen rights are guaranteed by the Constitution.

7.  Guarantees press freedom including social media.  Like had been the case before, throughout the turbulent electoral period, the government did not interfere with press freedom by way of gagging the media, closure of media houses or disabling social media networks.

8.  Is patriotically managing the economy of his country and in a professional manner.  Despite lack of so much natural resources and fertile soils as compared to its neighbours, Kenya's economy has remained at the top.

That is the rare and civilized Kenyan leader who restores hope to the rest of the continent.  The main opposition leader, Raila Odinga was right to voluntarily pull out of the re-run; otherwise it is not easy to defeat such a rare and civilized African leader.  The only critical issue in Kenya' democratic party is the feeling that "the Kikuyu have had their share of governance and that it is now the turn of the Luo." With a sober leadership, that issue will be resolved too. TT

INFORMATION IS POWER AND DEFIANCE IS THE WAY TO GO

You may share our stories / articles widely but please give credit to Change of Guards Blog.  We analyse politics and security for GLAR (Great Lakes of Africa Region) and it costs you nothing except to mention where you got the story from.  PLaGIARIMS is Theft.