NASA'S SYSTEM NEXT BIG THING, JUBILEE SCARED OF IT.

JUBILEE'S CONSTERNATION EMANATES FROM REALIZATION THAT NASA HAS SCOOPED THEM, HANDING THEM WHAT THEY LEAST DESIRED IN THE  PERSON OF RAILA ODINGA, AND THE IDEA OF OPEN GOVERNMENT.

Article by; KIBISU KABATESI published by The Star Newspaper on 4th of May 2017

Jubilee is missing the point in trying to discredit the NASA power and governance structure. Its argument is threadbare.

More correctly, Jubilee is on a slippery slope as a torrential political wave beckons. They must first explain how power concentrated in two individuals is better than power spread out to many before making a myth about NASA. By that time, they are likely to be out of office, given the punishment their horrendous experiment of a duopoly has meted out on Kenyans.

Jubilee is shocked for two main reasons: The NASA ticket they so much pretended not to want but dreaded has been unveiled, and NASA daring to announce publicly and, therefore, asking to be held accountable for what is normally kept confidential by power-hungry plotters. This usually is the undisclosed cruel manner with which regimes plan to plunder a country! The Youth Fund looting of cash by the gunny sack is emblematic of this regime’s primitive accumulation.

Hence, Jubilee’s consternation emanates from the realization that NASA has scooped them, handing them what they least desired in the person of Raila Odinga, and on the idea of open government the Constitution envisaged but which they have kept a lid on to facilitate looting of public resources.

For clarity, NASA isn’t creating new offices to warrant mock responses. In the NASA structure, it is explained in detail how the President, working within the confines of the supreme law, proposes to “form and run government” with the “assistance” of a deputy and the Cabinet. How he proposes to do that shouldn’t be Jubilee’s business.

NASA undermines the mongrel system Jubilee is used to.

Other than as Commander-in-Chief and head of state, nowhere in the Constitution is the President restricted on how to form his Cabinet, and delegate responsibilities.

How the President “forms” government is only restricted to a Cabinet of not less than 14 and not more than 22 Cabinet Secretaries, plus the President, the Deputy President and the Attorney General. It’s within the President’s prerogative to “run a government” of 25 members.

However, the Constitution requires the President be assisted in running government. The manner he chooses to be “assisted” includes structuring, portfolio and responsibility assignment. The titles given to these portfolios are the preserve of the President’s ingenuity. To that extent, those claiming the NASA structure is in breach of the Constitution are cheap idlers chasing the wind.

That NASA has chosen a collegiate system in decision-making irritates Jubilee no end because it exposes its underbelly of crude inclination to personal rule. None exhibits this flaw more than Deputy President William Ruto’s frenzied denunciation of power-sharing as “creating jobs” for individuals, as if his isn’t a job. Ruto, and now State House, is hawking the idea that monopolizing power is newer than NASA magnanimous intent to share power. Raila, the NASA flagbearer, should restate why he’s willing to share power, and ward off the irritation from the Jubilee leadership.

The fact is by his own hand, the President-presumptive of NASA has in the coalition agreement signed off some specific responsibilities by delegation to his colleagues. This collegial leadership spreads power horizontally rather than Jubilee’s potentate vertical constriction of power. Any control freak anywhere would be extremely agitated against the NASA governance transparency trajectory.

It’s then understandable that Jubilee’s envy laden diatribe is inspired by squandered chances when Kanu nostalgia informed gobbling up other parties. Indeed, Jubilee could’ve been a model political party had it gone for sharing rather than constricting the political space in a vain attempt at personal rule.

For all practical purposes, the August 8 election is the nadir of an experiment gone awry. Already the backlash against Jubilee lies in the avalanche of independent candidate it’s sprouting from bungled nominations.

More than any other party, Jubilee rues the fact that most of its political luminaries fell at the nomination stage, and therefore starts off wounded — badly.

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