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{
    "id": 734051,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/734051/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 152,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Anyang'-Nyong'o",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I will be very brief. First, I would like to congratulate the Mover of the Motion and the Joint Committee that has been put together comprising Members of the Senate and the National Assembly to look at the election of Members to serve in the EALA. Madam Temporary Speaker, I remember I was once involved in 2008/2009 in a controversy of election of Members to the EALA and the fact that we as the ODM did not feel that those elections had been carried out properly. I think Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. will remember very well that his late father was leading the legal team in Arusha. It was a learning curve of the importance of clear rules of the game for electing Members to the Assembly in terms of representation of parties equitably, recognition of the need for what I may call gender parity in representation to the Assembly and finally to take to the Assembly men and women who are competent to debate issues in the Assembly with regard to la raison d'être of that Assembly. Madam Temporary Speaker, the EAC has a long history. if I remember well, it started as the East Africa Common Services Organisation (EACSO) during colonial times. With Independence, it became a community. The idea was eventually to have one East Africa. I remember that the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere declined to be the Head of State of Tanzania for a whole year. He gave that responsibility to the late Rashidi Kawawa as the Prime Minister while he was organizing the Tanzanians politically and waiting for the rest of the East African countries to become independent so that we could have a political federation. I am quite sure that all of you in this House were too young to remember that. It is important to note that at that point in time, the nationalists were committed to one East Africa. Unfortunately, our country stands accused of having been reluctant to push for the political federation at the political level, given the ideology and commitment of the leadership then. This is one of the reasons why two factions emerged in KANU. One was Pan Africanist, further to the left and socialist, while the other one was very inward looking, conservative and ready to pander to western interest; but that is water under the bridge. Eventually, in the 1970s as you may remember, with the coup in Uganda, it became very difficult to maintain the EAC as one because the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere completely disapproved of the manner in which the late Idi Amin was conducting his affairs in Uganda and East Africa as a whole. Madam Temporary Speaker, time has come for us to rejuvenate the idea of East “African-ness”. The treaty as it exists looks forward to fast-track economic integration and also to have an ambition for a political federation, but I am afraid that those who go to the assembly do not seem to champion this political aspect of the Community as hard as they could. In the early part of this century, 2003/2004, a professor from Uganda led a team of people to go around East Africa to find out what our ideas about that future of East Africa are. He is a scholar of EAC and federation. The report they gave pointed out that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}