Democratically elected presidents, like Uhuru Kenyatta, are the personification of the state just as the flag, the national anthem, and the national emblem are symbols of sovereignty. The president is the voice of the nation whether you are the president of China or Nauru, Kenya or United States. Irrespective of size, wealth, or population, state sovereignty should never be trampled or compromised. In direct democracies, people elect their presidents and their other leaders.
They entrust them with their national psyche, guidance, and leadership and expect them to hold this trust with esteem and humble servitude. The people can take back this mandate and vote their president out. The president is answerable to his people and it is only the people who have this power through their legally established institutions. To delegate this or defer it to external authority is to cede national sovereignty and subjugate the will of the people to external control, which is contrary to the principles of democracy and common sense.
That no sitting president has been hauled to the ICC is not pertinent, what is pertinent is that no democratically elected president should be hauled there while in office. This is tantamount to hauling his people before the court to answer for crimes committed by others. Sitting presidents should be, and are, immune from prosecution for the time they hold the office.
There is need to hold back the prosecution of our president until he relinquishes the office of the president of the Republic of Kenya. The charges can wait until Uhuru leaves office. It is never too late for justice, after all the Nazi war criminals are still being hunted some seventy years after the crimes were committed and everyone believes that justice is being done.
The president faces charges of crimes committed before he came into office, that he should defend himself is a given, but he should do this when he is not in office. To haul him before the same court that is seeking his help in charging terrorists and their sponsors is a misnomer. The charges against Uhuru can wait.
The people of Kenya should not be subjected to the humiliation of watching their democratically elected president being grilled in a foreign court under foreign laws. Much as we try to divorce Uhuru from Kenya, as long as he is the president, he is the voice and embodiment of the nation. Putting him in the dock is tantamount to putting the nation in the dock. As for me and my house I will not be put in the dock. Uhuru should not go to The Hague while he is the president of Kenya.
OP-ED by Charles Wairia
North Carolina USA
