By Okech Kendo
Reference to King Solomon and the two women who wanted his arbitration over the parentage of a baby in this column last week was not an inspired sermon. It was an attempt to apply the classic biblical metaphor to the ruckus of the Kibaki Succession.
The other context was what was then called an in-the-house match between Raila Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi over the Orange Democratic Movement presidential ticket. The two had then not visited ‘King Solomon’ for counsel over the baby. The match has since spawned out of control. The players can now be haunted separately.
Yet there was always another way of resolving the match, without killing the baby. Mudavadi could easily have run for party leadership, in much the same way he was bidding for ODM presidential ticket. The routes were leading to presidential ballot – one way or another.
One of the two women who went to King Solomon wanted the baby alive, even if in the hands of the wrong woman. The fake woman is the one whose child had died the previous night, as she slept. The fake mother had suffocated her own baby.
The woman whose baby had died wanted the baby’s throat slit to even their bereavement. And at that moment Solomon knew who the real mother of the living baby was, and to her he gave the infant. That is how Israel came to declare King Solomon a wise man.
A reader, Peter Wamae, says the metaphor was right on target. Yet another wants to know, who King Solomon of the day; the baby, and the two prostitutes who went to see the wise man are, in the context of the Kibaki Succession.
The two women who went to seek King Solomon’s counsel are presidential aspirants Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi, James ole Kiyiapi, Peter Kenneth, Martha Karua, Kalonzo Musyoka, Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Eugene Wamalwa, and others – haggling over Kenya.
Integrity prostitutes
Kenya is the baby. You the voter of today can be Sage Solomon of the biblical era. You must be ready to arbitrate on the real mother of this baby – your country, your destiny. If you make the right choice, you shall have saved your country from fraudulent politicians. The aspirants are the two ‘women’ fighting over this baby. Some of them have a cause, which is larger than their own personal, presidential ambitions.
Others want presidential power to keep the plague of The Hague out of Nairobi. They want to continue with the old ways of this city. They have seen President Omar al Bashir of Sudan remains protected in Khartoum, even though there is a warrant for his arrest over human rights abuses and genocide in Darfur.
There are also spoilers among the presidential aspirants. Others want State power to protect proceeds of impunity. Others just want to improve their CVs by being on the ballot paper. Others want a future, without a past of distinguished service, or commitment to tangible causes.
They do not know a presidential aspirant’s past is necessary for better judgement of potential.
Others believe they have a mission to help the country to reclaim elusive causes like restoring lost nationhood.
This road was lost three years after independence in 1963. The urge for self-enrichment blurred the larger cause of fighting for political freedom. Those who had been entrusted with State power used it to impoverish the masses, with impunity.
It is a cocktail of the serious and the pretenders, for which you are being called upon to be the judge. The General Election is calling upon you to decide, who among the presidential aspirants, is working for the national interest.
Other readers wrote saying, they are happy that this ‘baby’ can talk, and knows the real mother, and that the real King Solomon today is not, and cannot be, one wise man sitting in an ivory tower, and pretending to know the parentage of this baby.
It is you the citizens to make informed decisions on whose ‘baby’ this is. Or who can be trusted to nurture this baby for the public good. Whoever wants to kill the baby for personal reasons, or own it for the wrong reasons, cannot be the real mother. You know, or should know who is lying and who is telling the truth about the parentage of this baby, now lying before Sage Solomon for independent arbitration.
You know presidential aspirants – the women who have come to you, the new King Solomon – who stand for the public interest.
Some are moral and integrity prostitutes, known across the kingdom as opportunists, impudents, impunists, and liars who would claim parentage of a child they did not sire. Some are known beneficiaries of impunity and would gladly maintain the status quo.
*****
Something has changed in Ingo. You need to read Bonni Khalwale’s demeanour to know. The Ikolomani MP has a hard time trying to stand down Osama I for Osama II – his prize bulls.
But Eugene Wamalwa who has always been Khalwale’s bet for the presidential prize won’t quit for Mudavadi. Khalwale knows the Sabatia MP’s goring style gives Eugene the hue of President Andry Rajoelina, the DJ leader of Madagascar.
Writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor Quality and Production. kendo@standardmedia.co.ke
