Ahmednasir: Kenyan Lawyers are half baked.

Adapted from Saturday Nation: 
Combative lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi once declared that Kenyan judges don’t read. Now he believes things have changed, though he thinks the problem has now shifted from the bench to the bar.

The father of five and an avid reader thinks President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto must read three important books. He also suggests a book for former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Q: You have suggested before that Kenyan judges don’t read. Do you still hold the view?
A: Previously, judges were pedestrian, barely literate. A nondescript lawyer could contest elections on a Kanu ticket and lose, and then he is appointed High Court judge.

That is how Kanu branch chairmen found their way into the High Court. But now things have changed
dramatically.

The intellectual depth of judges of the Supreme Court, for instance is very deep. You can’t find a more

heavyweight court in the region. Almost the entire faculty of the University of Nairobi’s School of Law is in the bench.

What is your rating of today’s crop of law graduates?

The training of lawyers in our universities is pathetic. To say they are half-baked would be a compliment. I even feel they should be closed for five years.  Moi University is the worst. Most can’t answer the one plus one of law, really.

During the Supreme Court hearing of the Raila election petition you quoted a lot of authorities. When do you read?

The Supreme Court is an academic court. Four of its judges are law school professors. The traditional way of defence has been using case law. I took a different trajectory to raise the bar by quoting articles authored by renowned professors. Some I had read; others I read while preparing for the case.

What are you reading now?

Nial Ferguson’s Civilization: The Six Killer Apps of Western Power. The other is Antonin Scalia and Bryana Garner’s Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. I read several books at the same time. But the books that fascinate me most are those about the US Supreme Court. I just finished reading Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court and The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court.

You don’t read books by Kenyan or African writers?

Is there a serious Kenyan writer? Well, I read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s  Wizard of the Crow which has a lot of devils, and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. There is this argument that Kenyans don’t read.

Even if they wanted to buy books where can they buy them?  I remember venturing into a bookshop in Singapore where I walked and walked but could not reach the end. There are no such bookshops here. And the few we have don’t stock current, stimulating or relevant books.

Which books would you not read?

The so-called inspirational books which purport to tell you how to be a millionaire in 20 seconds. The motivation to succeed is inborn. It cannot be coached or taught.

If you had a chance, what one book would you recommend to Raila Odinga?

I would buy him Roger Osborne’s Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy. The best way to educate a person is to teach him history. I recommend it to Raila because his life is a journey in history and whether it ends in light or darkness depends on whether he learns.

And President Uhuru Kenyatta?

Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror. The book unmasks Western hypocrisy.

It will teach him that the West is a piece of crap and that his trials in The Hague are not about principles (of justice), but politics. He must also read Jonathan Power’s The New Machiavelli.

I also have a must read for (Deputy President William) Ruto: Barton Gellman’s Angler: The Shadow Presidency of Dick Cheney. (The autobiography reveals how the former Secretary of State transformed himself into the most powerful and influential vice-president in US history.)

You strike many as fairly defiant. Who radicalised you?

I am not a radical; I am a rebel. No book and nobody made me a rebel. I have never been a prefect in my life. I was the noise maker and prefects were writing times 10 against my name in the list of noise makers to emphasise my notoriety.

I abhor the status quo. My magazine, The Nairobi Law Monthly, and the weekly column in the Sunday Nation are the continuation of the noise I used to make in school.

But there is a feeling that nowadays you can hardly disguise your contempt for other ‘noise makers’ — if we can borrow your word — civil society and what you call ‘jua kali’ analysts.

I have no apologies. Civil society itself needs to be checked. Foreign funding programmes from such places as the FBI and CIA can wreck the country. Let people with track record make suggestions. Not people who have never taught nor practised law criticising rulings.

What is the one thing that keeps you awake at night?

It is not business or money. I have never planned to make wealth. The most striking tragedy in Kenya is the level of tribalism among members of the big tribes. You talk to very decent-looking people, educated, living well and all.

But wait until you talk about the politics and the base animal emerges. They are slaves of their tribes and it really is dehumanising. The key political decisions are made for them by tribal chiefs.

They have no choice. This is worst amongst Luos, Kalenjins and Kikuyus. I went to Uganda for the first time in December and I observed that what preoccupies that country is royalty, partying and booze. Here it is tribalism.

You recently coined an expression which has been adopted by Wikipedia. Did you plan it or it just happened at the Supreme Court?

Raila doctrine is not about Raila. The refusal by election losers to concede defeat in Kenya, Uganda, DRC  is an African  phenomenon. Democracy is only when they win. Had Raila won the election, he would have said it was free and fair. Had the Supreme Court ruled in his favour, he would have said the decision was

Solomonic.

What books do you buy for your children?

Abridged classics. Wherever I travel and buy books, I must bring some for my son who is in year eight, too. Now he has more than 200.

You read bed time stories for your children?

I used to read for my son, but now my wife reads for my daughters.

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