Are the prospects for genuine reforms so desperate that we now must seek divine intervention? It appears that way. Because a couple of days after calling on the President to impress on him the importance of allowing the people themselves to determine how they want to be governed, Catholic bishops have now embarked on a country-wide series of prayers to seek God's intervention in the matter.

That can only mean that after they appealed to the highest authority in the land, they can take no comfort in the fact that their advice was listened to and heeded. So yesterday, all the 23 Catholic bishops met at the Holy Family Basilica to celebrate the special mass. Equally, from October 31, the 23 Catholic dioceses and 630 parishes will join in prayer for the reform process. That is not only a lot of prayer, but bespeaks volumes about the wishes and the views of most Kenyans.

Concomitantly, the NGO council has launched a drive to collect signatures for a petition to parliamentarians not to debate the Constitution should it be taken to parliament. Again, it is an exercise that bespeaks volumes. about the wishes and views of many Kenyans as well.

We believe it is right and justifiable for the government and President Moi, irrespective of his convictions about the deficiencies of a people-driven process, to now listen to the people. A democratically elected President and a freely chosen government cannot rule in contravention of the wishes of so many.

The reasons advanced against the people of Kenya reforming their own Constitution are, to put it mildly, vacuous and strange. Those who sink the ploughshares also get to pick their own rulers. And they set the rules by which they wish to be governed. We can not be a democracy that does not listen to the majority.

There is no law that cannot be changed or scrapped by the people it serves. Let us stop pretending that parliament perfectly represents the wishes of all Kenyans. Similarly, we must not delude ourselves that the people are competent in electing leaders, but not in recognising what laws are in their best interests.

The people have spoken and they continue to do so. They cannot all be wrong. The government must now listen.

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