Why Moses Wetang’ula is not fit to criticise Jubilee

Kenya: Those who enjoy hip-hop will remember that virtually every group of note in that genre has a member whose job it is to stand in the background and do not much more than loudly reaffirming what the lead singer is saying.

So, picture the scene. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka is singing ethnic lyrics at a journalist.

Among the senior politicians nodding along in solidarity with this display of bigotry, are Senators Moses Wetang’ula and Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o – Senator Wetang’ula, distinguishing himself by responding ‘absolutely’ to Kalonzo’s song.

In a reversal of all decorum, however, the man in the background has now become the face of CORD’s campaign of bigotry and lies.

The Moses Wetang’ula who was censured by Parliament, the same Senator Wetang’ula who had to leave his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the last government, over the transaction involving our embassy in Japan; the very same Moses Wetang’ula who was found guilty of bribing voters during the 2013 elections.

This is the man tasked with presenting CORD’s vision of a just and fair society. The difficulty, as should be clear after even the briefest glance at his record in public life, is that he lacks the credibility for the role.

For, remember, it is Moses Wetang’ ula who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs when it was voted the worst performing ministry.

And, more sinisterly, he was the minister in charge of Foreign Affairs when questions were raised regarding the disposal of missions and Government property in foreign lands.

So loud were the questions, and so copious was the evidence of wrongdoing, that the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations investigated the matter, and especially the most prominent transaction, which involved Kenya’s mission in Japan.

The committee found that the transaction was fraught with irregularities, and damaged the interests of the nation.

In its report, the committee made several other findings and recommendations regarding Senator Wetang’ula.

In particular, it recommended that the minister for Foreign Affairs, as Senator Wetang’ula then was, should step aside for investigations to take place.

It found that the appointing authority (President Kibaki at the time) should be advised that Mr Wetang’ula’s conduct was incompatible with ministerial office.

It also recommended that if found guilty by a court of law, Mr Wetang’ula should be barred from holding State office in the Republic.

In the event, no conviction was secured, so the recommendation that Mr Wetang’ula should be barred from holding State office went by the board.

Still, in its final finding, the Parliamentary Committee found that Mr Wetang’ula was worthy of severe reprimand, and also that he had deliberately misled the Committee.

This pattern of bad conduct and open hypocrisy in serious public affairs appears to persist.

Fast forward a few months, during which an election petition was launched against Senator Wetangula’s election to the Senate.

It emerged, during the petition, that Senator Wetang’ula’s campaign had done exactly what he accused others of doing: he was found to have bribed voters, indeed he was found to have bribed clergymen – an unusually incorruptible part of the electorate, one would have thought.

On the basis of this finding, and others, the High Court in Kisumu ordered a re-run of the election.

This, then, is the man who would present the CORD vision of society to us.

This is the man who would teach us that the Jubilee government is given to lies, when he has himself been censured by Parliament for deliberately misleading it in its investigation.

This is the man who tells us that the Jubilee government is ethnically biased, when he publicly delights in the ethnic bigotry of his party.

This is the man who accused others of corruption in January 2013, and was then found to have openly bribed clergymen in Kanduyi in February 2013.

It is this blatant hypocrisy, and this pattern of deceit, which explains why CORD’s campaign against the government lacks all credibility.

Ms Lesuuda is a Nominated Senator