Last week, Justice Sether Maina of the High Court dismissed an appeal by Sirisia MP John Waluke and his business partner Grace Wakhungu. The justice argued that the two, who were convicted last year for fraudulently acquiring Sh313 million from National Cereals and Produce Board, were properly convicted and the more than 40 years they are required to serve in jail are not excessive. The MP and his business associate are back in prison.
It was Malcolm X who said that there are hunters and there are also those who hunt the hunters. The sentencing of John Waluke and Grace Wakhungu to 67 and 69 years in prison respectively, should they fail to pay the two billion fine, stirred the hornet’s nest. The ruling by Magistrate Elizabeth Juma on the evening of June 25, 2022 was not only historic, it was unprecedented.
It has been argued, correctly, that the success of corruption cases is subject to the admissibility of the evidence presented to the court by the state, the prosecutor. The judiciary has thus endeavored to absolve itself of most, if not all, miscarriages of justice.
Not very often do you hear of a Kenyan politician being sentenced to jail. Arraigning a Kenyan politician in court is one thing, getting them convicted is another. In Waluke’s case the famous edict “eventually the long arm of the law catches up with everyone” finds life. Law is known to promise more that it can deliver. In most cases, the law is known to catch up with the common man and is seen to be alien to people of means.
What ordinary Kenyans don’t understand is why it becomes such a strenuous exercise to convict the high and mighty even where public resources are clearly mismanaged. Why is it that the process of acquiring evidence only becomes a challenge when it is the rich involved?
The selective administration of justice with regard to the implementation of Covid-19 guidelines, for instance, answers this question. Whereas civilians are punished, sometimes even by death – as was the case in Lessos, Nandi County, where a police officer is alleged to have killed a disabled man for not wearing a face mask – politicians violate the same guidelines with impunity. It is from this culture of inequality before the law that the high and mighty draw their misguided sense of importance and immunity to universality of justice.
When power is associated with ability to act outside the common law, those who wield it will always tend to stop at nothing in an effort to capitalise on this unholy opportunity. In other words, proximity to political power, which, in Kenya, comes with some sort of immunity, is partly responsible for miscarriages of justice whenever the rich are implicated.
