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{
"id": 1065701,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065701/?format=api",
"text_counter": 168,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tongaren, FORD-K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
"speaker": {
"id": 141,
"legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
"slug": "david-eseli"
},
"content": "As one speaker said, I was privileged to be in this House during the making of the 2010 Constitution. A constitutional moment is very important and people need to be very collected and think seriously about everything that they say. Maybe, a little bit into history, Africa is a very interesting place in the sense that when left on our own, we had little nations. Each of our tribe was a nation with its ideals, traditions and things. Then in came the colonialists who put us all together, stirred up the waters, exterminated certain tribes and messed up with others, and then lumped us all together and called us countries. That is where our trouble started. These multi-ethnic tribes put together into a country had to find a way of surviving together. It is a miracle that we have survived, as countries, up to this moment. In fact, I think when the colonialist exited he did not imagine that we would survive up to now. So, we are faced with a problem that we need to sort out that we are together and we have to live together. We have to continue to live together and to thrive together and make our future together as a country with those other several nations like the Luhya nation, the Kikuyu nation, the Kalenjin nation, among others. All those nationalities are lumped together into one country. Some of those nationalities have their own traditions, they have their own ways of doing their things but, somehow, we have to live together and survive together. Hon. Speaker, at independence, three terrible things were fertilised and have germinated into maturity as I speak. That is tribalism, corruption and impunity. The three feed on each other. These three have grown and they have now matured and they are eating us up. Because of that, we have to find a way of surviving together. All those communities that I have spoken about did not run necessarily democratic processes. That was left to us by the colonialists. Somehow, it might not be the best method of governance, but it is the best that we have. We have to taillight to be fit for purpose of ourselves. So, this foreign ideology called democracy comes with a constitution. The first Constitution we got at independence, we mutilated it effectively. By the time we came to the second constitutional moment, the other one was in tatters. So, now we have to make another constitution. I dare tell my colleagues, do not tire because we are dealing with a foreign ideology that we are trying to craft together to put our diverse nationalities together as a country. Yes, we are amending the Constitution now. We amended it in 2010. Perhaps, we will have to amend it again to make it fit for a purpose. So, people should not be so resistant to the idea of changing the Constitution so long as we are sure that we are changing the Constitution for the good of the people, not for individual gain of certain people. In this situation, this particular Bill was long overdue. I listened to the Nominated Member when she said that she was part of the 2010 constitution-making process. She did not want some of the changes that came up. I would have liked to ask her, when we went around the country creating the Bomas Draft and majority of Kenyans vouched for a parliamentary system, where did they get that presidential system that came out as part of the 2010 Constitution? That was the biggest crime they committed against this country. With our multi-ethnic society, a pure presidential system is totally unsuitable. I remember that when they came up with that, it was a shock to Parliament. We had not expected that. We had expected a parliamentary or hybrid system. Since she was part of that team, she has questions to answer to Kenyans. Where did they get the presidential system? We did not recommend it. They came with it and we passed it. We have tried it now for two terms and it has given us a bad feeling. In the pure presidential system, we thought that the separation of powers, namely, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary, would be helpful. It has not been as helpful as we expected. With our multi-ethnic society, a parliamentary or a quasi -parliamentary system like what is proposed in this Bill would be most suitable. It would be more suitable for us because we can The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}