Reverend Mutava Musyimi’s humility is what Kenya needs

He is sinking his teeth deeply into the Kenyan public primary school.

He wants to understand fully how our primary schools operate so that he can recommend or instigate whatever legislative, financial or administrative measures might be required to make them operate better and produce more confident, rounded and enlightened graduates.

He fully supports the Jubilee Manifesto, including its commitment to providing free laptops to all Standard One pupils across the country. In the current Parliament, he chairs the 51-member Budget and Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful in the House, having been allocated some of the powers that the Finance Minister used to exercise under our old constitution.

Stepped down

He was one of just a handful of men who ran for the presidency of Kenya last time, but eventually stepped down in favour of the man who ultimately beat the rest of the pack, Uhuru Kenyatta.

As you may have guessed, our subject is the Reverend Mutava Musyimi, who served as the MP for Gachoka in the last Parliament but today sits in the 11th Parliament as the MP for Mbeere South, Embu County. In a wide-ranging interview held in Nairobi last week, we asked Mutava (as his friends call him) at exactly what point he realised his presidential bid was not going to fly.

“Actually, it was not one particular point as such. There were at least five different points or factors, which, together, made my presidential candidacy untenable. When the ICC indictments came down, Uhuru suddenly became a larger-than-life figure within the Kikuyu and the larger Gema community without whose block vote I could not hope to win a presidential election.

“Then when he formed The National Alliance (TNA), with himself as its heart and fulcrum, this Gema voting block completely consolidated itself around him, making any alternative presidential candidacy from the Mount Kenya region both untenable and impractical.

“Third, when my own Kamba community came out almost unanimously behind Kalonzo Musyoka who was supporting Raila Odinga for the presidency, it became clear that there would be no residual ethnic vote for me.

“Two other developments then drove me to the inevitable conclusion. The NGO sector began sending signals indicating that, by and large, it was going to support the Cord side and it also became abundantly clear that the churches did not have a clear agenda, particularly with respect to the issue of fielding one presidential candidate.

“When we read all these signals, we realised that my candidacy could not be sustained and so I made the difficult but inevitable decision to drop my bid and, instead, support Uhuru Kenyatta whose manifesto was actually deeper and stronger than mine.”

Game-changers

The message here is not only very clear, but also very sobering. Mutava, like all the other candidates, stood for the presidency hoping and praying that one, two or three critical factors would swing and play in his favour. Unfortunately, almost all of these game-changing factors happened to be completely beyond his control.

The beauty and logic of his presidential campaign ultimately lay in the bitter fact that, as soon as he realized that his bid had become untenable, he halted his troops, shut down the entire campaign and joined the only presidential movement in the region which not only made political sense but whose platform he inherently believed was superior to his own. Politics is, after all, just the art of the possible.

But what does the MP for Mbeere South now see as perhaps the single most important message or lesson that he drew from his presidential bid?  His answer is brief and direct but one which can serve both our budding and veteran politicians very well indeed:

“Kenya is a country of many shades, many communities and many fault lines. If you hope to lead this country or play a significant leadership role at the national level, you have to engage it from where it is. 

You cannot engage this country from where it is not. There are certain realities that collectively define this country, which no serious political leader can ignore.

“There are some who believe that pure idealism will break down all barriers and solve all our problems. That is not how it works. It is not just idealism that matters.”

So, what does the future hold for the former presidential candidate? Does he plan to gun for the presidency again?

“No one knows what the future will bring. The next election, which, incidentally, is only three years and ten months away, is out for me as Uhuru will still be there. But, after that, I cannot rule anything out.”

Indeed. There must still be some presidential space for this God-fearing, prayerful, totally de-tribalised and people-friendly MP. For him, it must surely be back to the future! 

 

The writer is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.

[email protected]