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"id": 197169,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/197169/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Namwamba",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Budalang'i",
"speaker": {
"id": 108,
"legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. My names are Ababu Namwamba, the Member for Budalangi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think it will be in order for me to start by expressing my gratitude to my constituents for expressing their confidence in me and sending me to this august House to represent them and, at the same time, to serve the people of Kenya. Mr.Temporary Deputy peaker, Sir, I want to support this Motion but, first, I want to applaud the spirit of bipartisanship that has descended upon this House over the last several weeks, since the signing of the historic agreement between hon. Raila and hon. Kibaki. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, before I came to this House, I was a member of a group of Kenyans from across the regions, political parties and diverse ethnicities, and all of them were eyeing this House. We came together with an agenda that upon walking through those doors, we would try to build the spirit of bi-partisanship. It gratifies me that as I look at both sides of the House, I see no less than 15 Members of that group who made it to this House. So, the spirit of bi- partisanship for me is the grand opportunity for myself and Members of that group to lead this nation towards a new face, where we can live together as a nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, two days ago, we enacted two momentous pieces of legislation, and while there has been some disquiet on the jurisprudential soundness of those pieces of legislation, especially of the constitutional amendment Bill, I want to tell my learned friends in this House, and outside, that even in law, great scholars like Dicey do acknowledge through a terminology we use in law, \"sui generis\", that whether in legislation or in rulings by a court of law, there comes a time when any tribunal, or any institution like this one, makes extraordinary decisions. The pieces of legislation that we enacted last Tuesday fall within that rubric about extraordinariness. They are sui generis . That is, pieces of legislation of a peculiar nature. I do believe that, that will not set a worrying precedent, but does reflect the flexibility of legislation. It is March 20, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 325 for that reason that I would want to confine my speech to the legislative agenda outlined in the Presidential Address. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we cannot appreciate fully the enormity of the legislation we passed recently unless we put it in a historical context. Recently, as a nation, we walked together to the brink. We looked down the precipice and did not like what we saw. As a nation, we decided to walk back. But we also run a risk in the excitement of walking back. We run the risk of repeating the same mistakes that have been made over the last 45 years; the mistake of peppering over the real issues that underlie the kind of challenges that faced this nation recently. We run the risk of glossing over and not fixing the fundamentals. I would like to pose a question to all of us: These ghosts that have repeatedly arisen to disturb the soul of our motherland, have we only lulled those ghosts, or have we slayed and buried them for eternity? I want to challenge this House that we should use that opportunity to slay and bury those ghosts for eternity and not merely lull them to slump just to awaken again later. The path that we have walked as a nation over the last 45 years, when I look back, is a path littered with debris of impunity, ethnic unease, extremism and exclusion. We have a grand opportunity to look back and chart a path free of this kind of debris. We all know that the First Republic was constructed on the succession to the colonial governor, and its attendant anomalies and weaknesses. We have a grand opportunity to construct a Second Republic in this nation. That Republic can be firmly anchored on this legislature and the supremacy of this House. Way back, I learnt from a tree surgeon that when any branch of a tree becomes deceased, that tree automatically transfers the functions of that branch to another branch. Those functions do not cease. I think, for 45 years, we have attempted to run this nation through the Executive and what we call the \"imperial presidency.\" We now have an opportunity to transfer the management of the affairs of this land to this legislature. That will not happen overnight. The pace may be slow and sometimes frustrating, but as Napoleon would say, victory is never won in miles but in inches. You will win one inch and celebrate it, and then move on to the next inch. May we celebrate every inch of victory and gather enough inches to have a great moment for transformation of our land. The leadership of this country has historically failed us. The constitutional and institutional heritage that we have had over the years has also failed us. This is a great opportunity to re- engineer that heritage. So, I am looking forward to witnessing, in this Chamber, a new era of legislation, where legislation will be passed not for the sake of statistics - so that at the end of the Session we can say that we enacted 100 pieces of legislation - but for the purpose of responding to the actual needs of this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I look forward to witnessing the enactment of a new constitutional framework that replaces the queer structure of Government that we have today, which is a strange fusion of the American presidentialism and the Westminster parliamentarism. We need a system that would be unique to us, but that which anchors itself around this august House; a truly parliamentary system, which we have an opportunity to test through the legislation that we passed a couple of days ago. There is no way a firm democracy can be anchored on wobbly political parties. Political parties must be, and essentially are, the building blocks of any democracy. We must strengthen our political parties and other political institutions. I add my voice to those who have urged the President to expeditiously assent to the Political Parties Bill. It is unacceptable that 45 years after Independence, we have segments of our society that feel completely removed from the mainstream of this nation. I am thinking about the young people of this country. We must move beyond tokenism, and have concrete measures that can advance our youth. It is unacceptable that a constituency like Budalang'i, that I represent, should suffer flooding every single year. Of course, I have promised my people that there shall be no flooding under my watch. I want to believe that we 326 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 20, 2008 have a grand opportunity for a fresh beginning. I hope that Members of this House will not waste this opportunity. Thank you."
}