By OKECH KENDO

It should not always be true that there is a price tag for everyone. It should also not always be true that those for whom a price has been fixed have been pocketed to sing their master’s tune.

Signs are already there that whoever pays the piper is going to call the tune. With the right price, and numbers to boot, tails are going to wag, even by remote control, in Parliament and the Senate. These are supposedly hallowed Houses of legislation for the ‘good governance of men and women’. That is the enduring inscription in Parliament Buildings. This good governance could be the casualty if the Houses do not have a critical mass of legislators who rate conscience above compromise.

But with complaints of poor pay already emerging as the priority of the Eleventh Parliament, the carrot-wielding tempter is likely to pocket vulnerable lawmakers.

And God forbid that it also be true that those who remain out their with their consciences intact, are merely bidding time because their price tag is still missing.

Already, former Speaker of the National Assembly Kenneth Marende is aware of this generation for whom ‘Solomonic Rulings’ mean nothing. This is a generation that does not respect ‘Solomon’ and his measured counsel: A generation for whom the end justifies the means.

That Marende lost his push for re-election as Speaker of the National Assembly when Parliament first sat signaled the possible meaning of numbers in the Eleventh Parliament.

The rejection of Solomonic ingenuity, however, is nothing new. Keen observers long realised the changing equation would not work for the conscientious.

Considering the ‘Solomonic’ picture of issues, in Parliament and outside, will have to be tempered with circumstantial compromises.

Those Solomonic decisions of former House Speaker Marende, like renunciation of presidential nominees for Chief Justice, Attorney General, Director of Public Prosecution, and Controller of Budget in 2011 may not have resonated with the status quo.

They may have forgotten, but they had not forgiven the latter day ‘Solomon’ for his audacity to rattle and speak to power so rudely.

Now it is payback time, in a lynching kind of way, with a statement that Speakers like Marende were, and still are, ahead of their times.

On November 2011, while ruling on whether former President Kibaki and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga had consulted on appointments of Chief Justice, Attorney General and others, then Speaker Marende said:

 “After careful consideration of this matter, doing the best I can, weighing one thing against the other, it is my considered opinion that the required standard of consultation is not so high as to mean concurrence or agreement and thereby become a recipe for deadlocks and brinkmanship.”

Campaigning for re-election last month, Marende said: “My decisions in the House have helped the country move forward and progress over the last five years. Any reasonable MP has little choice but to vote for me.”

But only a few MPs were ‘reasonable’ enough to reward Marende’s Solomonic ingenuity.

When Marende lost the bid to National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, he was being told not every era recognises Solomonic interventions in the exercise of power. Again, who knows, Muturi could be another Solomon!

Rudderless

It is to this era that Opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy MPs have been ushered. They do not have a star with deep pockets around which they can orbit in Parliament and in the Senate. They are likely to scatter now that the tree’s been cut.

Ancient Chinese poet Du Fu of the Tang dynasty knew that to catch a gang of bandits, you first have to capture its leader. He also knew that to shoot a rider, you first have to shoot his horse. He knew a gang is rudderless without a leader; and a rider is lost without the horse.

Ambitious but broke, or greedy CORD legislators and senators are crying for a star around whom they would congregate to waggle their way to the top.  These MPs risk reliving another Aesopian metaphor. The fable informs Robert Greene’s famous Law 42 of 48 Laws of Power.

Those yearning for love may be laying a trap, knowing the best way to scatter the monkeys is to cut the tree, and the sure way to kill moths is to light a lamp. Or should it be said wag the wallet – and sing, ‘Kuri kuri!’?

of dogs and wolves

Now the Aesopian replay: Once upon a time, the wolves sent an emissary to the sheep, desiring there might be peace between them.

“Why,” they posed, “Should we forever be waging this deadly strife? Those wicked dogs are the cause of it. They are incessantly barking at us, and provoking us. Send them away, and there will be no longer any obstacle to our eternal friendship and peace.”

The sheep considered this offer of amity from the carnivores and said to themselves, why not!  The dogs were dismissed and the flock thus deprived of their best protectors, became vulnerable.

The wolves have realised they do not have to bother with the sheep or even the dogs. They have an opportunity to strike the shepherd so the sheep can scatter. Then, they would pick out the sheep one by one.

The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor Quality and Production.

kendo@standardmedia.co.ke