Tinga’s brand of militarised politics is about violent overthrow of poll losses

PETER KIMANI} seriously speaking

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This doll, a character from the popular children’s movie, ‘Toy Story’, was spotted somewhere in the city and managed to turn quite a few heads, reaffirming that men’s curiosity never wanes at the sight of just about any girl… [photo: mbugua kibera/STANDARD]

It’s been a while since I saw former PM Tinga as animated as he was in Kisumu last weekend. And he was still feeling blue from last year’s election loss, for he wore a blue hat and a matching shirt, and his dance to the benga beat appeared to imitate a marching soldier.

The reason became obvious pretty soon: he had the men in uniform in mind. As people voted last March, Tinga said, a scowl flashing across his face to show it still pained him to recall the details, what happened was akin to a military coup.

“That thing was planned and Kibaki was aware,” Tinga said in lilting Luo inflections, his intimation of “that thing” evoking immediate resonance with the people.

For when he speaks in their language, “that thing” can only mean one thing: instruments of power that, ironically, come in the shape of a sword, passed on to a civilian by a man in uniform, after the elections are concluded.

“THAT THING”

Tinga must know; he once tried to grab those instruments of power by subverting the order of things. Although there had been no elections in 1982, he interested some juniors in uniform to grab power from the Man from Sacho and hand it to him.

The scheme did not work as the bosses in uniform restored their boss to power and Tinga was hauled to the cooler for his role in the attempted power grab. So one might say he is an old hand at these things.

Not too long ago, when Tinga and others founded the ODM party, its top brass was called the Pentagon, after the US Defence Department that bears the same name. The name mirrored not just the militarised nature of politics, but Tinga’s own fascination with power wielded by men in uniform.

So when he says military chiefs co-ordinated “that thing” last year, he surely must know what he is talking about.

But that was a throw off from Tinga’s initial narrative of “that thing” which he said resembled a military coup, before fleshing out the story to one about a full-blown power grab.

For good measure, Tinga invoked the name of “Mapambano Man” Otieno Kajwang who, as if on cue, yanked his eyes wide open to demonstrate how he managed to spot military chiefs at Bomas.

“I saw the military boss himself,” Kajwang said, before suppressing a laugh although what followed was no laughing matter at all. “Let them arrest me if they want…” Kajwang threatened, before blabbering that he did not know if the military chief was at Bomas in his private or official capacity.

The latter fact should have been easy to verify, say, from the man’s garb, especially if he wore fatigues of limited opacity to avoid detection. But I suspect since Kajwang’s lawyerly instincts must have grown rusty from the years he has been struck off the advocates’ roll, he felt no desire to probe the matter any further.

SPILLING THE BEANS

Instead, he went on a frolic of his own, talking about the beans that he would spill in the likely event of his arrest, although he did not divulge why anyone would be interested in taking him into custody, or even what beans the military chief was bearing.

Tinga’s own conclusion was just as mysterious. He said “that thing” was not won but stolen, his evidence being that his men at Pentagon were chased out of Bomas like dogs, although he did not say by whom.