The Mwende Mwinzi vendetta

Mwende Mwinzi when she appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Defense and Foreign Relations on May 28, 2019 for vetting after being nominated for the position of Kenya's ambassador to South Korea.

Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group

Makau Mutua

Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.

 I often wonder what MPs and state functionaries are smoking. It must be strong stuff, whatever it is. Either that, or the most senior potentates in the state can’t think their way out of a paper bag. Maybe it’s because they are simply petty and “small” people. I know it’s a Sunday and I should be magnanimous. But I am pissed off. Once again, the National Assembly has published a doozy – a stinker – of a bill.
        The Foreign Service Bill of 2021 is simply the anti-diaspora Mwende Mwinzi Amendment. Without shame, or even pretence, the bill seeks to outlaw and disqualify Ms Mwinzi from her post as Kenya’s ambassador to South Korea. Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta must reject it pronto.
        Section 23(3)(a) of the Foreign Service Bill is the odious and offending provision. It provides that a nominee for ambassador “shall be a citizen of the Republic of Kenya and shall not, during the duration of their appointment, hold the citizenship of another country”.
        Apart from poor English in the legal drafting, it’s entirely unconstitutional. The matter is cut and dry. An ambassador isn’t a “state officer” among the positions enumerated in Art 261 of the Constitution from which there’s a prohibition on dual citizenship by virtue of Art 78(2). It doesn’t get any more crystal clear. Further, a court has held that Parliament can’t force Ms Mwinzi to renounce her American citizenship, which she acquired at birth.
Inconsequential matter
        MPs have subjected Ms Mwinzi to an ordeal. They are determined to stop her from serving her country abroad. What’s even befuddling is that some of Mr Kenyatta’s henchmen in the legislature have gone mano-a-mano with him on such an inconsequential matter. Why would they expend so much political capital for something Mr Kenyatta wants done? Is it out of pique, principle, or fidelity to the Constitution and the law?
        It’s clear the dual citizen objection of the Parliament to Ms Mwinzi’s ambassadorship has no legal, or constitutional, legs. Is there more than meets the eye? I am left to wonder whether Ms Mwinzi rebuffed these men’s advances. Who can explain the sexist and misogynistic crusade against her?
Let me single out a few culprits. One is Speaker Justin Muturi, who’s Mr Kenyatta’s man in the National Assembly. He once served as a magistrate but left the Judiciary under a cloud. I know him well. He was a year ahead of me in law school at the University of Nairobi. It was Kanu’s heyday and he was reputed to be close to the repressive state. I was a senior official in student leadership then. Students regarded him with hostility and at one point came close to “teaching him a lesson”.
He has done very well for himself. But we know that ambition can blind people to ethics. Is he using the Mwinzi issue as a bargaining chip?
        It seems Mr Muturi wants to inherit Mr Kenyatta as the ethnic kingpin in Mt Kenya. He’s a Mbeere from Embu. That will not cut it because all the region’s kingpins “must” be Kikuyu. To make up for this obvious deficit, Mr Muturi has been playing footsie with DP William Ruto. He’s positioning himself as Mr Ruto’s running mate from the region.
        My guess is that the DP’s allies want Ms Mwinzi out so that one of their own can sit in Seoul. Mr Muturi is playing ball with them. It’s a huge gamble that may end his nine political lives. But perhaps he figures Mr Kenyatta is a lame duck who can’t exact revenge against him.
The other anti-Mwinzi anti-diaspora mandarin is Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary  Macharia Kamau. The man has a long career in the UN system punctuated – and marred – by his hostile machinations against the International Criminal Court. He has a very high opinion of himself.
At a Kenyan diaspora conference in Washington DC some years back, he invited himself to a conversation between me and renown Kenyan legal scholar James Thuo Gathii of Loyola Chicago University School of Law. He was smug, snobbish and pretentious. He left me aghast at his brusqueness. Ambassador Macharia has been waging a war against Ms Mwinzi. It just baffles me why all the “hating” and disdain.
Full-on war
        More broadly, the vendetta against Ms Mwinzi is a full-on war against all Kenyans in the diaspora.
Where other countries, including the US, Israel, Egypt, Canada, South Africa and Germany welcome dual citizens and allow them to serve in most official positions, Kenya is stuck in the Stone Age.
Last year, the Kenya diaspora remitted $3 billion eclipsing tea, coffee and tourism as sources of GDP – and foreign exchange.
        Reportedly, there are many Cabinet secretaries, MPs, and senior civil servants who hold dual citizenship. No one has gone after them. Diasporans are loyal and don’t steal from Kenya.  Let them serve.
@makaumutua.