KENYA, the East African country noted for its leisure and tourism, including the globally acknowledged safari, is fast carving a niche for itself. That niche is likely to earn the country a notoriety that could prove deleterious to all other aspects of its national life. If the noticeable conduct of the Kenyan state has been limited to one administration and one political party, it could have just passed as the bad act of one regime or one political party. But within three short years two different presidents of the country had acted in ways that should be of concern to the rest of Africa, the African Union, and indeed the world. Kenya, in fact its capital Nairobi, is becoming a deadly place for visiting opposition figures from other countries in Africa. It’s fast becoming a ground for the capture, abduction, kidnapping, imprisonment, drugging, and facilitating the extraordinary rendition of vocal opponents of authoritarian regimes elsewhere on the continent.
The first in such unsavoury conduct in recent memory was in 2021. Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of that country’s independence president Jomo Kenyatta, was the president in 2021. In 2014 he had escaped trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands on charges of inciting bloody riots over election disputes. Uhuru was the fourth president of the country from 2013 to 2022. Ahead of the 2022 election, he worked against the eventual winner William Ruto who belonged to the same political party as him, and who was in fact the deputy president. Uhuru had been everything anybody could be in the politics and governance of his country including being minister of finance, and deputy prime minister. But apart from allegations of inciting bloody election riots during which scores of Kenyans died, and the humiliating charges before an international tribunal, was his regime’s facilitation of the abduction and extraordinary rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to Nigeria in 2021. Kanu is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group campaigning for the self-determination and independence of the Igbo in the south east of Nigeria. At the time of his abduction in Kenya, Kanu was an unrelenting and unsparing critic of the regime of Nigeria’s immediate past president, Maj.- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari turned out to be an unmitigated disaster and an affliction on the country during the eight years of his presidency.
Because of the criminal conduct of Uhuru Kenyatta’s rogue regime, Nnamdi Kanu has remained in prison in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital territory since 2021. An attempt to set Kanu up on February 10, for what he (Kanu) and some other literate commentators described as a kangaroo trial failed. In open court Kanu insisted that the judge had recused herself from the case and so no longer had jurisdiction to hear the case. He also alleged that the prosecutors were motivated by the humongous monetary inducements from the state rather than by the need for justice. Obviously frustrated by the ding dong Justice Binta Nyako adjourned the case sine die and returned Kanu to prison. By the way, Kanu has been in and out of prison for the better part of the last one decade. He had earlier been arrested at the Lagos airport on his return from London, dumped in prison for about two years, arraigned before Nyako and granted bail. He was adjudged to have jumped bail when he escaped a murderous and bloody attack on his father’s home in Umuahia in Abia state by a combined team of state security agents. He fled abroad for his dear life.
A similar scenario played out again in the same Nairobi, Kenya in November last year. This time it happened under a different president, Mr. William Ruto, who took over the presidency after a hotly contested election. Dr. Kizza Besigye is the main opposition leader in Uganda, Kenya’s neighbours. For years he has been a thorn in the flesh of a one time freedom fighter and now an eternal ruler of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. Effectively, Museveni has been the ruler of Uganda since 1986 with the sacking of the regimes of Milton Obote and Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada. He consolidated power during the 2000s and 2010s with the removal of constitutional term limits in 2005 which allowed him to run for president indefinitely. Three years ago Museveni won his sixth term as president in an election marred by the usual massive rigging and the intimidation of prominent opposition figures, and social media shutdowns. His regime is notorious for alleged human rights abuses, torture, arbitrary arrests, extra judicial killings, corruption and nepotism. It is interesting and instructive that this same Kizza Besigye who has become the punching bag of Museveni was his (Museveni’s) personal physician from 1980 to 1982 while Museveni was a rebel leader. About 45 years ago Besigye worked his utmost to keep Museveni in good health. And alive. Today, and for the past 20 years or so, Museveni appears determined to kill Dr. Besigye for consistently contesting for the presidency against him.
As we wrote earlier Besigye has become the symbol of opposition to the life presidency of Museveni. And what a price he has been paying for opposing the ‘saviour’ of Uganda. Like Kanu, Besigye, himself a serial presidential candidate, was arrested in November 2024 in Kenya and forcibly returned to Uganda, and held in a military prison. He was said to be in Kenya for a book launch. Then he was charged with firearms and security offences in a military tribunal. The charges carry the death penalty. However, because the trial has been highly controversial and closely watched by audiences beyond Uganda and Kenya from where he was plucked, the case was later transferred to a civilian court, where he is currently facing charges of treason. As with Kanu’s case in Nigeria, Besigye’s trial keeps being adjourned. On February 11, he reportedly embarked on a hunger strike. His health is presently said to be in a poor state. His situation was so bad that by the middle of February there were claims on social media that he had died. The rumour was subsequently squashed. It has been reported that following pressure, the opposition leader was brought before a civilian court in Kampala on February 19, looking weak and frail. And in a wheelchair. The next day a court ordered that the trial be suspended for 60 days to allow him to recover. Meanwhile, the international community, including the United Nations human rights chief, has expressed concern over Besigye’s treatment and the fairness of his trial. In the case of Kanu in Nigeria, rapporteurs of a UN agency declared about two years ago that his detention and trial were not legal on account of his extraordinary rendition from Kenya to Nigeria in 2021.
It should be a matter of concern to Africa and the world that Kenya is gradually turning itself into a rogue state which facilitates the abduction of visiting opposition figures and the extraordinary rendition or repatriation of such persons to dictatorial regimes in their home countries. We acknowledge that Kenya is a player in the international community, and so has a duty in line with relevant treaties it subscribed to, to help arrest fugitives from the law. But there are laws and processes and procedures for effecting such arrests and extradition. This certainly was not the case with Nnamdi Kanu. And there are indications that Besigye’s recent forcible arrest and repatriation to Uganda may not have met the prescribed minimum standards for repatriation. Furthermore, Dr. Besigye was not a fugitive. He has stubbornly refused to flee Uganda in spite of his persecutions. And his insistence on staying in his country annoys Museveni and Museveni’s enablers to no end. The worry is that if Africa closes its eyes to the rogue tendencies of the Kenyan state ostensibly because of the preponderance of dictatorial regimes on the continent whether civilian or military, democracies elsewhere cannot afford to do the same. Kenya should be closely watched and monitored so as to curb this dangerous trend. If Kenya fails to follow the path of rectitude and adherence to international treaties of which it is a signatory, it should be treated as a pariah state and punished through coordinated international sanctions. There’s a possibility that other countries may copy the proclivity of Kenya to arrest opposition personages and illegally repatriate them to authoritarian regimes in their home countries where uncertain fates including extrajudicial deaths await them. And the continent would gradually become a cauldron for the opposition.
Ironically, Kenya was born out of strident and fierce opposition to the British by relentless freedom fighters. I recall a stage play of the Kenyan struggles at the University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1982 or so. The actor who played the role of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, a key Mau Mau leader, was outstanding. He was bloodied by the British but remained unbowed till the end. The audience was moved in a way that I have not witnessed since then. The Mau Mau struggle was central to the liberation of Kenya, and its independence from British colonial rule. They fought against land expropriation by the British, forced labour, and racial segregation from 1952. The Mau Mau fighters in the 1950s who fought the British were primarily of the Kikuyu nation just like Uhuru Kenyatta, latter day betrayer and persecutor of freedom fighters. Jomo Kenyatta was the first president of independent Kenya and one of the key leaders of Mau Mau. Uhuru, the fourth president of Kenya is his son and Mau Mau by extension. It may be arguable but without the struggles of the Mau Mau Kenya would not have gained independence when it did. In 2013, the British government which tormented and killed scores of the leaders of Mau Mau officially recognised the roles of the warriors in Kenya’s independence and agreed to pay compensation to surviving veterans. In the eyes of Uhuru, his father Jomo Kenyatta, might as well have been a terrorist when he fought alongside his Mau Mau comrades to free Kenya from the clutches of colonial Britain. Current president William Ruto could be excused for his excesses because, unlike Uhuru, his family was not known for being part of the bloody liberation struggles in Kenya. He has no martyrs to temper his condemnable conduct.
AUTHOR: UGO ONUOHA
Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.
Source: Ripples
