Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 60009,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/60009/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 344,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. E. I. Mohamed",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 82,
        "legal_name": "Mohamed Ibrahim Elmi",
        "slug": "mohamed-elmi"
    },
    "content": "As I support the President’s Speech, I would like to seriously think about sticking with the laws that we pass. We cannot have a situation where the law is good when it serves me and it is not good when it does not. Therefore, the whole philosophy or attitude where I can change my mind anytime as it suits me is not a very good role model for our country and young people. I believe that that is one area that we should deal with as hon. Members of this House. That is changing positions depending on the politics of the day. The issue about The Hague has been talked about a lot and is really trying to divide this country. We must ask ourselves as leaders: How did we end up there? How did we end up where we are today? It is because we refused to talk. We refused to solve things in a long-term way. It is because in this same House, we refused to deal with the issue of what happened to us in 2008 and it has happened to us many other times. My plea is that we have another moment and it is not too late for this country to come together and ask ourselves; how do we stop impunity? How can we be one and how can we have justice? We should separate the politics of 2012 from what will eventually be our undoing which is blame game; everybody trying to make maximum capital. The politics that I see on both sides, I do not believe is in the interests of the victims, or the future of Kenya, neither is it actually in the interests of those who are accused or are suspected. Therefore, you ask yourself who we are serving with all the loud noises at the moment; everybody is accusing the other. It has made it impossible for us to sit down in the National Assembly or the Executive and chart the way forward. We should bite the bullet. The Hague is with us, we can use it to take us back to 2008 and worse or choose to learn from it and move forward. I have seen hon. Members blame foreign Governments and foreign leaders for interference. I really want to disagree with that. Anybody who puts their house in order eliminates a chance for a foreigner to intervene. They will have no chance. Whether you use the word “who”, “they” or “us”, we are all Kenyans. We have seen the politics of Kenya where people are together today, tomorrow they are almost killing each other and the following day they are together again. Why do we not make this country a first world as envisaged in our Vision 2030? We have fixed the political pillar through the Constitution; why do we not get through with it? Get it in place. Pick on any issue however hard and talk about it. We should not allow individuals to blind us from the future of this country, in my view. Therefore, I, again, say it is possible; we can come together, even at this late hour, and speak with one voice as one Government and one Parliament and still compete politically. It should be possible to compete for power and positions, and at the same time not destroy ourselves in the process. It surely must be possible. I believe that is what happens in the West. After all, with the new Constitution, what is there in these positions that people want the whole Kenya to die for, or this country to go down? With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}