Lawyer Miguna Miguna has criticised Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna after the senator met Dutch Ambassador to Kenya Henk Jan Bakker at the diplomat’s residence in Nairobi.
Sifuna shared photographs of the meeting on September 16, saying he had met Bakker and his staff in the morning and described the reception as warm. Former Law Society of Kenya President Faith Odhiambo was also present during the meeting.
Meeting with Dutch Ambassador Henk Jan Bakker at his residence in Nairobi this morning. He and his staff are very warm and welcoming reflecting the relationship between our two countries- Sifuna posted
Miguna, however, took issue with Sifuna’s engagement with the foreign diplomat, arguing that a politician seeking Kenya’s highest office should observe what he described as proper political and diplomatic etiquette.
In a post reacting to the meeting, Miguna said Sifuna should not “grovel before foreign diplomats” and argued that senior foreign officials should instead be handled through appropriate diplomatic channels.
Miguna went further, warning against what he described as the possibility of Kenyans handing power to “another western puppet or prefect.” He framed his comments as unsolicited advice to Sifuna, telling the senator that organised political actors should teach him basic political and diplomatic etiquette.
At least the organized bandits should TEACH Edwin Sifuna basic political and diplomatic etiquettes of someone seeking the highest office in Africa: You don’t grovel before foreign diplomats. Those are senior clerks you send mid-level apparatchiks to meet. Kenyans will not hand over power to another western puppet or prefect. Pro bono advice.- Dr Miguna shared
The criticism comes as Sifuna continues to position himself prominently in Kenya’s opposition politics.
His meeting with the Dutch envoy, however, was publicly presented by Sifuna as an engagement reflecting the relationship between Kenya and the Netherlands.
This is what Dr Miguna Miguna said recently about the Linda Mwananchi preffered Presidential candidate Senator Edwin Sifuna.
WHY EDWIN SIFUNA IS WRONG Kenya is not a failed state and a country where impunity reigns because it has never had a lawyer as president. There are millions of inept, corrupt and brutal lawyers who have occupied positions of power in Kenya, Africa and the rest of the world. The judiciary has been one of the most corrupt and incompetent institutions despite being controlled and entirely led by lawyers. Lawyers are behind most fraudulent transactions at the Lands Office, at the AG Chambers, in various ministries, state corporations, universities and the private sector. What Kenya and other African countries lack isn’t the absence of lawyers or people with particular degrees in leadership positions; what is lacking is leadership with INTEGRITY operating within a transformed state, institutions and systems. Anyone stuck on “Ruto failed because he studied zoology, so I will succeed because I am a lawyer” is actually far worse than Ruto. It’s not about what you studied. It’s not about your occupation. And it certainly is not about the “software.” It is, at the root, about the structurally, architecturally, and institutionally DEFECTIVE colonial STATE, colonial INSTITUTIONS, colonial LAWS and colonial SYSTEMS, which were not designed to serve Africans. They were designed to EXTRACT, EXPLOIT and DEHUMANIZE Africans. The colonial STATE is inherently inimical to EQUITY, constitutionalism, DIGNITY and SOCIAL JUSTICE, which ought to be our ultimate collective vision for our societies. It’s also about a transformative and REVOLUTIONARY vision and INTEGRITY. Unless we focus on these things, the slogans about WANTAM, TUTAM, or any other, will continue to be nothing but clever manipulative propaganda to FORTIFY, entrench and perpetuate the unjust, inequitable and repressive colonial STATE. I would rather have standard 8 leaders with integrity who are committed revolutionaries rather than corrupt lawyers, engineers, economists, theologians, teachers, accountants, zoologists, anthropologists, politicians, political scientists, physicians or physicists with a PhD. Telling the truth is a revolutionary act.