Mutua: Man with sharp pen that knows no friend or foe

NASA Leaders Hon. Raila Odinga listens to Prof. Makau Mutua as Kalonzo Musyoka and Wavinya Ndeti look on during the opening of Kitui Villa Hotel, owned by Prof. Makau Mutua, Later they addressed a Rally at Kitui Bus Park. [Dennis Kavisu, Standard]

In William Shakespeare’s last work, Comedy of Errors, Antipholus of Syracuse poses a philosophical question on why time is such a niggard of hair, being as it is, so plentiful an excrement.

The answer Dromio of Syracuse offers wraps it up for law Prof Makau Mutua who was once in his youth bedecked with flowing locks: ““Because it is a blessing he has bestowed on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.”

For pursuit and achievement of academic glory, he lost all- his country, friends, his hair, his accent- but gained in wit. He may never recover back his hair, but if the events in Kitui this week are anything to go by, the man is recovering his country, his friends and his accent.

At the launch of his Kitui Villa, all the victims of his acerbic writing gathered to celebrate the man who in 2016, confronted his potential employer- Judicial Service Commission- with an 84 page resume.

Described as rare gem by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s wife Ida, few of his achievements were scored in Kenya. Despite enrolling at the University of Nairobi in 1979, the only qualification he attained in Kenya was being the finalist of a moot court competition in 1980 and serving as Secretary General of the students union in 19981.

Thereafter, he ventured out to conquer the world, starting in neighboring Tanzania where he completed he earned two degrees in law, a bachelor and a masters. But where he excelled most- at the prestigious Harvard Law School, earning himself another master of laws (LLM) in 1985 and doctor of juridical science (SJD) in 1987.

Makau then thundered into the academia and excelled so much so that three pages of his CV are bedecked with the awards and honors he received in the course of time. But it is what Kenyans have known him for, a columnist, which take the most of his CV- 39 pages!

For decades now, Mutua has been tearing them apart in columns- first at the Sunday Nation and later at the Sunday Standard. Friend and foe have tasted the good, the bad and the ugly of his crystal ball.

From his chief hero- Raila Odinga, the chief guest at his Kitui event, to President Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy President William Ruto, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, former Attorney General Githu Muigai, Ford Kenya leader Moses Wetangula, no one has been spared his choice adjectives.

Waving his academic freedom card, he has described Raila the “quintessential tribal baron,” Uhuru Kenyatta a political barracuda, Kalonzo a craven dog that lost its bone, Prof Muigai as a “proverbial dead man walking” and city lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi “a legal gadfly”.

Kalonzo has particularly borne the brunt of his pen, together with his co-principal Moses Wetangula and Moses Mudavadi. From calling them “the so-called co-principals”, “Kanu apparatchiks” and “minnows to Mr Odinga’s Mt. Olympus” to doubting their political cojones, he has very little good to say about them.

While for him Mudavadi has no single remarkable achievement to his credit, Kalonzo does not seem to catch a break while Wetangula has always been on the wrong side of history.

“He should be a relic of a bygone era, but he isn’t. What galls me is Mr Wetang’ula’s audacity to seek the highest office in the land,” he once wrote of Weta.

Comparing Kalonzo to late Senator Mutula Kilonzo, he delivered a mortal blow to him saying the vowels ‘i’ and the ‘a’ in their names made all the difference. “In Kikamba, the prefix ‘ki’ denotes “big” while ‘ka’ refers to “small.” The former is thinking “big” while the latter is thinking “small.”

In contrast, his adulation for the man he like to calls “Mr Odinga is no secret. He once wrote that if Noah’s flood struck the earth again, and everything died, “Mr Odinga would crawl out from under a rock alive.”

Rao has equally been on the receiving end of Makau, however. When he called on Kenya to recall her troops from Somalia, Makau was on his case, but with kid gloves. “This is what I say to Mr Odinga, my dear comrade, the indomitable doyen of opposition politics — nyet!”

But the least remembered of Makau’s jab at Mr Odinga was in in July of 2007 when he was jostling for the ODM presidential ticket with Kalonzo and Mudavadi and when he painted him as  a contradiction of terms, tribalist to the core and zealot of power grab.

 “The grand march to the House on the Hill is the only thing that matters. All other things – truth, principles, and relationships – are just mere malleable details.”

His descriptions are quite the stuff comedy and tragedy are made of. However, a times he can get subtly crude like when he went for the jugular of his friend Ahmednasir Abdullahi.

“I am flummoxed, for example, why a man who claims to be well educated speaks and writes in broken English. His cognition appears to be incapable of mastering English grammar and syntax. Perhaps this is a congenital defect.”

Or when boxing late Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo’s widow Nduku out of the Makueni By-election race: “I am also sure he (late Kilonzo) would have wanted his favorite daughter – not his second wife – to succeed him.”

And he can get plainly ruthless. When Charity Ngilu launched her presidential bid ahead of 2013 election, Makau roundly dismissed it “smoke and mirrors.

“This is the one case where there’s smoke, but no fire,” he wrote.

It a strange twist of fate, the “Mama Rainbow” he once advised to contemplate another line of work from politics was one of his guests at the villa opening who later this week conducted her cabinet meeting at the villa.

A key feature of his columns is the ominous awareness he seeks to drive among his victims, that they are finally being cornered: “The legal gadfly (Ahmednasir) has finally been neutered” “I’ve got to give it to you (Githu). You are slippery, and not easily pigeon-holed – until now. I guess there are no more tricks in your hat.”

His crystal ball has failed him many times. He pronounced a political merger of TNA and URP “nonsense on stilts and prophesied that “it won’t take a step without collapsing into a heap.” He also dismissed Ruto’s political career.

But it was also spot on at times. The crystal ball predicted the end for Solomonic Kenneth Marende when he opposed the move on MPs to pay taxes: He has never bounced back. He predicted that Raila will- and must- be on the ballot probably for the last time in 2017.

For Makau Mutua, it ends in what Antipoholus termed a “bald conclusion”: “Time himself is bald, and therefore to the world’s end will have bald followers.”

 As a follower of time, Mutua continues to dance in wit, until the last syllable of his recorded time.