How Oburu Oginga's dalliance with UDA is quickly driving ODM to its deathbed

 

President William Ruto chats with ODM Party Leader Senator Oburu Oginga during its 20th aniversary in Mombasa. [PCS]

After the fiasco that was ODM’s National Executive Committee meeting in Mombasa last week, it is safe to opine that Oburu Odinga has become a demolition expert intent on destroying ODM. Dr Oburu joins the league of party leaders Nick Clegg (UK Liberal Democrats) and Jeremy Corbyn of the UK Labour Party. When Clegg pushed for a coalition with the Conservative Party in 2010, many Liberal Democrats felt betrayed, and the party lost popularity so fast that by 2015 its parliamentary representation had dropped from 57 seats to eight.

Beset by internal divisions and concerns over Brexit and antisemitism controversies, the Labour Party was handed its worst defeat in more than eight decades under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

Closer to home, Robert Mugabe’s latter years as ZANU-PF party leader were marked by internal faction wars that nearly collapsed the party, and his removal became inevitable. That is where ODM is today.

While Oburu is committed to forming a coalition with the United Democratic Alliance, Secretary General Edwin Sifuna and other insiders are opposed to it on principle. Unfortunately, Oburu and his co-conspirators, who are currently dining at the UDA table, and others who political scientists call ‘useful idiots’, see Sifuna as an impediment. To overcome this hurdle, the ‘useful idiots’ hatched a plan that, unfortunately, boomeranged.

With the poorly hatched scheme, Oburu inadvertently set in motion what could eventually hasten the destruction of ODM. History shows that political parties collapse when their leaders fail to nurture internal democracy, ignore party structures or enter into unpopular alliances. Worse, Oburu seems to have misread the public mood, or simply doesn’t care.

Sifuna’s tribulations fall into a tenon and mortise pattern. Globally, party SGs have fallen out of favour for being sober and principled enough to contradict the party leader directly or push for reforms that challenge entrenched networks.

Nikolai Bukharin, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, ran into trouble when he opposed Chancellor Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivisation policies. He was removed from leadership, expelled and executed in 1938.

Central to ODM’s feuding and near implosion is President William Ruto, who has, on at least two occasions, publicly threatened to orchestrate Sifuna’s ouster for needling him and refusing to play ball. But if ODM is having a nasty headache, Dr Ruto must be having a gigantic migraine triggered by the forced realisation that he has all along been too clever by half.

The Deputy President (DP) slot could present his Waterloo moment in 2027. His support from Mount Kenya East, which backs his re-election because DP Kithure Kindiki is their son, hinges on the retention of Prof Kindiki. On the other hand, support from ODM is conditional.

The faction backing Ruto’s re-election insists that the DP and several CS slots must be reserved for ODM. This suggestion resulted in last week’s ruckus when CS Geoffrey Ruku averred that Kindiki loyalists will not stand by and watch ODM have its way.

To circumvent this conundrum, Governor Muthomi Njuki came up with a ridiculous suggestion that insults the intelligence of ODM members. Mr Muthomi says the only chance ODM has of getting a shot at the DP slot is by accepting having Kindiki ‘donated’ to it, purposefully to continue serving as a DP proposed by ODM. Can reasoning get more warped and pedestrian than this?

Ruto should pull the rug from under the likes of Ruku and deny them a platform to drive their tribal agenda. Secondly, Ruto should dispense with the matter of running mate now to give himself time to manage any fallout. If he waits until close to the 2027 election, he could lose everything he ever thought he had built. That, however, would be his nemesis. He walked into this with his eyes wide open. He cannot have his cake and eat it too.

Ruto is well-intentioned, no doubt, but history shows us that even transformational leaders lose their appeal when voters feel economic hardships, endure poor service delivery and rampant corruption.