Big guns in ODM are at it again, breathing holy hot air of hypocrisy

By Barrack Muluka

I want to believe that the New Year is treating you well, so far. It should please me immensely to know that you have begun discovering the newness and happiness that you screamed for, ten days ago. I trust that your prosperity is not too far away from you.

For my part, I am still in West Kenya, on extended Christmas, so to speak. I am here in the land of the setting sun, in the scorched earth of Mt Elgon. I have been staring at the empty fields, the hopelessness, wondering about man’s inhumanity to man. Maybe, some day, I should share with you my findings on the diverse horrors of the perennial tragedy of this Mountain of the Setting Sun. But I will not promise you. My mission on the mountain is purely self-education, at least for now.

As far as the year goes, it is my birthday, today – the one my mother gave me. I actually have two birthdays. There is the one my mother gave me and the one I gave myself. My mother’s comes at the height of the woes of school fees, books, uniforms, insurance renewals and allied financial abracadabra.

Nobody even notices that you were also born. Not even a little miserable short text message. To expect a birthday card is to be too ambitious. I have now, therefore, adjusted my birthday to coincide with New Year’s Day.

I have been monitoring Nairobi with the bucolic detachment of a Russian Cossack. When you are here on the mountain, you begin seeing the country a little more clearly. You begin asking questions that you do not ask when you are too close to the centre of power. Perhaps, as our people say, it is true that the eyes are too close to the nose to see that it is the nose that smells.

Nairobi knocks you breathless. The big guns in ODM are at it again, breathing holy hot air of hypocrisy. At least that is what you see when you are in the mountain. They have been distancing themselves from the Media Law, saying that PNU and President Kibaki ambushed everybody with this bad law. But simple village philosophy from the mountain is asking whether the ODM has no Members of Parliament. An old man I met two days ago told me that ODM’s big guns hunt with the wolves while pretending to run with the rabbits.

The Mzee has been wondering whether in the new Standing Orders PNU’s MPs sit in the House on specific days while ODM’s sit on separate days. For how can a political outfit with over 100 MPs scream foul over a bad law that was made by only 25 MPs? ‘Where were ODM’s MPs to kill the bad law on the floor of the House,’ he asks, ‘Where were their seven-day wonder boys?’ I have told the Mzee that I don’t have answers to his questions. But I have promised to pose them to Mr Jakoyo Midiwo.

Chance to lobby

He is the man responsible for making sure that there are enough ODM MPs in the House to shut out all bad laws. Together with other big guns in the party, he is the man to tell Kenyans why ODM should hypocritically cry foul in this grave matter. At any rate, the simple Mzee continues, if there were only 25 MPs in the House, was there not even a single ODM MP to point out that there was no quorum in the House?

It is also the view of the Mzee of Mount Elgon that ODM had an even better chance of lobbying the Speaker not to place the Bill of the bad law on the Order Paper, while seeking broad consensus on the issue. The Speaker and his deputy are the big boys on the House Business Committee. They virtually single-handedly decide what business comes to the floor and what does not. It is worse than scandalous for ODM to try to cheat the world that they were ambushed, says our simple minded villager.

His truth of the matter is that the entire political top brass in Kenya speaks only for its protuberant stomach. The President, his Vice, the Prime Minister and his deputies, as well as the entire retinue of law makers do not speak for Kenya. But while they are all wolves running after the rabbits that are Kenyans, they do not hesitate to pretend to be rabbits, should the opportunity present itself.

My Mzee in the mountain has told me to beware the vulpine sympathies of the ODM top brass. Here is an outfit that has not resolved tax issues in Parliament. It has not solved the food crises in the country. Nor has it addressed Kenyans’ school fees worries, now that free secondary school education has flopped. Like the Mzee of Mount Elgon, I shall refuse to buy ODM’s sympathy with free Media.

ODM belongs together with the wolves in PNU and with Dr Alfred Mutua’s childish leaflets and short-text-messages that seek to defame the media. They eat together, drink together and get fat together. They speak the same language all the time, except when they are fighting for power and more comfort.

When they claim to speak for Kenyans there is always sinister hidden agenda. No, ODM cannot speak for the Media. They have no moral high ground to stand on, just like PNU.

—The writer (okwaromuluka@yahoo.com) is a publishing editor and media consultant with Mvule Publishers.