BY OKECH KENDO
In a well ordered society, run to the rules of democracy, good governance, and integrity, it would be great to have the former Prime Minister and former Vice-President lead the Opposition from inside Parliament.
In the West, for example, there are former presidents who have taken up to lecture circuits. Or even full time tenured university positions. Former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev, who was in change of the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, was until recently on lecture circuits. He was at ease in universities without feeling he was stooping so low for one who had gone so high.
There is nothing like lowering your stature. It is just fine contribution to society, only from different podium.
The former Deputy Chief Justice is heading to the lecture hall to teach law. There is nothing wrong with this because not all Kenyans can work for the Judiciary. It is also not only the paycheck from the Willy Mutunga Bench that guarantees a livelihood for all Kenyans.
Go for it Madam Nancy Baraza. Your crime was a simple case of pinching a nose. The incident was blown out of context for a political purpose. The subtext was always clear to right-thinking citizens.
Recent events in this country show your dismissal was a strategy. It could even be part the Mutunga succession. The CJ shall be retiring in about two or so years. Someone pliant will be needed to replace him. With your independence, you did not fit the status quo bill, even though you passed the integrity test to win the position.
But the rules of engagement are not always clear-cut in Kenya, where integrity is in danger. If Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka get tempted to consider drying up where they have bathed, they would be setting up themselves for embarrassment in a peculiarly Kenyan way.
It is not just that they were running for president and deputy president in the March 4 General Election.
It is not even that a man who wanted to become president should not settle for anything less, like Leader of the Minority in Parliament. There is much more to minority and opposition leadership than the pride of possible diminished stature. There is much more in the ‘digital’ age.
Leading opposition MPs in this era demands much than stature. It demands deep pockets, and ability to ‘grease’ hands, sometimes daily or weekly. This ability is critical now that MPs have declared themselves angry and hungry for cash.
Leading the opposition from anywhere – inside Parliament or from without – will require someone who has experience in managing angry dogs – literally.
To understand this, better try leading hungry dogs. Even keeping an angry and hungry dog for one night can be a bad experience. I had such a bad encounter with two hungry and angry German shepherds named Jack and Jill, on October 4, 2011.
When fed and pampered, nothing beats Jack and Jill in friendship and loyalty. But on this particular sundown, the house-help who was under instructions to feed the dogs at 5pm, every day, ignored the standing order.
When the dogs were let out, they had conspired for revenge. The dogs were unforgiving. After Jack and Jill made their usual, breakneck speed rounds across the compound, and marked their territory with urine, they were ready to strike in a strange way.
HUNGRY AND ANGRY
They started by circling a car parked in the compound. They had seen this car parked for years in the same place. They then started nosing the tyres in a malicious way. The dogs then started pulling out the mudguards, possibly mistaking them for hide for dinner. An earlier shower had moistened the mudguards.
When the rubber did not taste like their usual meat and bones, they stepped up their mischief.
Children in the house heard the noise, checked it out, but suspected nothing: Dogs always make noise and are always playful.
When I looked out, the front part of the car was already vandalised. The dogs had pulled out the water pipes feeding the window wipers. They were not relenting until I commanded them back to the kennel. They had been busy under the car like two mechanics wearing black, oily aprons on a rainy day. The failure to feed the dogs just once, on Sh1,400 dog food a week, caused a Sh12,000 damage to the car in a single evening.
Now Raila and Kalonzo are being invited to lead MPs whose agenda and only preoccupation, so far, is their diminished pay. The MPs are hungry; they are also angry.
They are baying for blood and they are vulnerable to manipulation.
Ms Sarah Serem, chair of Salaries and Remuneration Commission has spent much of the last two months trying to figure out what her crime is. Her sin is trying to manage the huge public wage bill.
Raila and Kalonzo cannot nurse their MPs to contentment in the opposition. The former PM and former VP do not have the wherewithal to handle MPs’ out-of-pocket monetary demands. They cannot feed angry MPs on integrity, ideology, and CORD unity alone. Moreover, the two are not known for their generosity, which is why some ODM MPs escaped from Raila’s grip in the Tenth Parliament
But ODM-allied ministers had their ministerial lifelines to hang on.
Integrity does not sell any more. This fact was obvious in the Tenth Parliament and the ground is riper now for manipulation of MPs. It’s a matter of time before their prize tag is fixed.
The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor Quality and Production.
kendo@standardmedia.co.ke
