Tomor­row, Sep­tem­ber 5, 2022, the Supreme Court will make an eager­ly await­ed rul­ing on the pres­i­den­tial peti­tion. It is wide­ly expect­ed that they will either nul­li­fy the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, or uphold William Ruto’s elec­tion. Can they in fact, find a mid­dle ground or a third option? Solomon­ic wis­dom should fuel what­ev­er deci­sion they make. Actu­al­ly, let’s call it Koomenic wis­dom. Accord­ing to the Urban dic­tio­nary, the name Koome means wis­dom. What a beau­ti­ful coincidence!

Thou­sands of years ago, Solomon­ic wis­dom saved a baby’s life when King Solomon iden­ti­fied the baby’s real moth­er. He was able to iden­ti­fy authen­tic mater­nal instincts in one of the two feud­ing women when she pre­ferred to give up her baby instead of the baby being sliced into two.

On Thurs­day 1^st Sep­tem­ber while appear­ing before the Supreme Court Jus­tices, lawyer Kioko Kiliku­mi assert­ed that the peti­tion­er, Raila Odin­ga, was like the evil moth­er because he want­ed the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions to be nul­li­fied unless he was award­ed vic­to­ry. He point­ed out that in this par­tic­u­lar Pres­i­den­tial case, his client William Ruto was the real father.

Lat­er on, Jus­tice Smokin Wan­jala implic­it­ly sug­gest­ed to Mr. Kiluku­mi that if indeed his client was akin to the real moth­er in the Solomon­ic case, then maybe he should act accord­ing­ly. The implic­it, tongue in cheek sug­ges­tion was that Kilukumi’s client should be will­ing to let go of his elec­toral victory.

While nei­ther the Peti­tion­er Raila Odin­ga, nor the respon­dent William Ruto is expect­ed to give up their respec­tive claims to vic­to­ry in order to prove a point, the real mother’s self­less spir­it must be con­sid­ered. The leader who will exhib­it self­less­ness and parental respon­si­bil­i­ty must be cel­e­brat­ed as a true leader.

The Kenyan elec­torate con­sti­tutes the baby in ques­tion. This elec­torate is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of 50 mil­lion Kenyans. An unsound, unwise judge­ment can eas­i­ly tear this nation into two.

In the cur­rent elec­toral process and the just con­clud­ed Supreme Court pro­ceed­ings, IEBC is like a nan­ny to the Kenyan elec­torate. They are the ones who have either mis­han­dled or tak­en good care of the elec­torate. Tomorrow’s Supreme Court deci­sion must clear­ly spot­light IEBC’s role.

All great nan­nies usu­al­ly become sur­ro­gate moth­ers to the chil­dren under their care. Sim­i­lar­ly, an IEBC that runs on integri­ty and trans­paren­cy will moth­er Kenya into a world-class democ­ra­cy devoid of trust defi­cien­cy. Kenyans will read­i­ly trust such an IEBC to print bal­lot papers local­ly because after all, we print our own mon­ey at De La Rue locat­ed in Math­are North.

As for the Supreme Court, it is stand­ing in King Solomon’s shoes. Just like him, it must admin­is­ter a Koomenic wis­dom that is deep-root­ed in three pow­er­ful pillars.

First­ly, tomorrow’s deci­sion must engen­der pub­lic con­fi­dence in the rule of law and demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples as espoused in our con­sti­tu­tion and elec­toral laws. I am encour­aged that in her clos­ing remarks, the Chief Jus­tice actu­al­ly asked for prayers for them to reach a deci­sion that would achieve this.

Sec­ond­ly, tomorrow’s deci­sion must expose and pun­ish the decep­tive spir­it and actions embod­ied by the evil moth­er from Solomon­ic times. Elec­toral decep­tion and mal­prac­tices are deeply harm­ful to our nation and must be root­ed out in entirety.

Final­ly, tomorrow’s deci­sion must accel­er­ate heal­ing that will uni­fy the coun­try. In doing so, the deci­sion must not only unearth elec­toral mess, it must also take deci­sive pre­emp­tive steps towards ensur­ing that this mess doesn’t keep recur­ring in all elec­toral cycles.

Con­sid­er­ing the above, lets brave for a ‘Koomenic Rul­ing’ appre­ci­at­ing the fact that although democ­ra­cy and rule of law is high-priced it is the foun­da­tion of a unit­ed coun­try and thriv­ing green econ­o­my. Think green, act green!