Attack on Wiper leader Kalonzo was unwarranted

NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga (left) and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka display their certificate and getting IEBC clearance to contest. (Photo: Moses Omusula, Standard)

Outrageous, preposterous; succinctly contextualise an opinion published in The Standard, June 12, 2017 under the headline: ‘Why Nasa is wrong coalition for the Kamba nation’ by Dr Joshua Kivuva, a political scientist, no less. Even as I acknowledge that Dr Kivuva is entitled to his opinion, there is a rider that an opinion should be supported by facts, or be able to attract the benefit of doubt.

Mr Kivuva begins by denigrating the competence of leaders who, for decades, have stood at the helm of the Kamba nation’s leadership. Based on subjective suppositions, Kivuva asserts that Johnstone Muthama ‘forced’ Wiper into NASA to ‘sabotage’ Kalonzo’s presidency bid and that Muthama has his own presidential ambition.

Dr Kivuva asserts that “this was not the first time Muthama has sabotaged Kalonzo’s presidential ambitions. Muthama and Raila’s men forced Kalonzo into that 2013 infamous Cord Coalition MoU. Muthama also forced Kalonzo into the infamous MoU with Kibaki, which sabotaged the opposition in 2008”.

The inference here is that Kalonzo is an empty head; some meek sheep that Muthama has led, not once, not twice, but thrice by the nose. Kivuva portrays Johnstone Muthama as selfish, a vampire that has been sucking the Kamba people’s blood. That is obnoxious. Permitting Kalonzo his merited credit in the context of Kamba politics cannot be too painful. Nationally, he has not survived the rough and tumble of the murky Kenyan politics by being dim-witted.

Poor hunters

Kivuva describes the ‘Kavii’ (dik dik) as being ‘ so small and bony it cannot be divided among hunters’, then goes ahead to lament that the three Kamba hunters left it all to Raila. Notice the contradiction? Kivuva is within reason arguing that politics is a struggle for power, but conveniently forgets to qualify it by stating that the biggest component of that non-physical struggle within a political entity of shared ideals is ‘compromise’.

That is exactly what Kalonzo settled for and aided the birth of NASA.

As a political scientist, Kivuva must, no doubt, know about the (Rational) Choice Theory. In Britain recently, Prime Minister Theresa May blundered and boxed herself into a corner with an early election that left her worse for wear. Everybody knew she was exposed, yet, she was able to negotiate a hasty partnership with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that gave her a slim majority in a parliament that had figuratively ‘hung’. No one can call Arlene Foster, DUP’s leader weak for not having arm-twisted May to get a better deal. Shared ideals on Brexit cobbled that partnership. Kivuva inadvertently presents himself as an unabashed tribalist when he avers that ‘If I were negotiating on your behalf (Kamba), I’d have insisted on Ukambani controlling important departments of government: Water and Irrigation, Lands, Agriculture, Energy and Devolution. Muthama did not get any of these’. Notwithstanding that he is an intellectual with a world view; the doctor has narrowed down his perspective to fit a tribal lens.

The constitution allows 22 Cabinet positions. Kenya has 43 tribes, all which would love representation at the high table; not forgetting the Constitution advocates equity in resource allocation. What plausible justification is there for the Kamba to claim five of the 22 Cabinet slots?

No benefits

Is Ukambani the driest place in Kenya to entertain a sense of entitlement to the Water ministry? Are Kamba the sorriest of Kenyans? Why would Ukambani demand the agriculture docket when we know where the bread basket lies? The illusion that having ministries in the hands of kinsmen automatically translates into development is not just pedestrian, it is provincial.

Central Kenya has produced three presidents, but the level of destitution in most parts there, like anywhere else, is astounding: crime, poverty, illicit brews, and squatters. Who would believe jiggers could still be menacing poor Kenyans today? Ministries do not serve regions; stating the contrary is hypocritical.

How many irrigation schemes are in Western because Eugene Wamalwa is the Water and Irrigation Cabinet Secretary? How are farmers in the Rift Valley benefitting because Willy Bett is the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture? Is northern Kenya more industrialised because Adan Mohamed is the Cabinet secretary for Industrialisation?

It is because we consider politics a contest for tribal gains that we keep drifting apart, the cacophony on ‘national unity’ from leaders as insincere as they come notwithstanding. Even knowing fully well the top two positions in Jubilee have been appropriated until 2032; Kivuva still argues Kalonzo would be better off in Jubilee, really?

Is the promise of a Cabinet position in Jubilee weightier than the deputy presidency in the Opposition in Kivuva’s estimation? How soon he forgets the way Mrs Charity Ngilu was treated shabbily while serving as the Cabinet Secretary for Lands in Jubilee? After the zeal she exhibited in her work, did she deserve the humiliation she was later subjected to?

Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The Standard. [email protected]