The danger of making Edwin Sifuna a messiah

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna during an interview with The Standard in Nairobi on October 9, 2026. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

I wonder if people know that Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between was written and submitted to the publisher under the title The Black Messiah. It was, I suspect, the developmental editing process that led to the change of title.

Ngugi knew that there is something dangerous about a human being being called a messiah, both in social life and in politics. Waiyaki is presented as a leader who carries the hopes of his people, but the expectations placed upon him eventually become too heavy for one human being to carry. When he failed to satisfy these expectations, the same community turned against him.

I have been reflecting on this aspect of the messiah in literature and mythology in relation to Edwin Sifuna. I am convinced that if I were Edwin Sifuna, I would be more worried about those who are beginning to see me as the man who will save Kenya than about those who oppose me.

As a lawyer of no mean repute, I am sure Sifuna has read some literature and mythology to know that the moment a politician is transformed into a messiah, ordinary political expectations disappear and impossible expectations take their place.

Allow me to explain and peel the cobwebs from your eyes before you call me my younger brother’s traitor. Sifuna has found himself at the centre of a remarkable political moment. The Nairobi senator, who for years was one of the most recognisable voices of the Orange Democratic Movement, has emerged as a major figure in the opposition following the death of Raila Odinga and the political realignments that followed.

He has openly signalled his presidential ambitions and is building a political vehicle around the Linda Mwananchi movement. There is nothing unusual about a politician seeking the presidency. What interests me as a social engineer is something deeper: the expectations that begin to surround such a politician.

When a nation becomes tired, disappointed, or angry, it begins to search not merely for a leader but for a saviour. The politician then ceases to be an ordinary human being and becomes a vessel into which millions of people pour their frustrations, dreams and disappointments.

Now, that is dangerous. Let me tell you a story from Greek mythology to explain what I am mean. There was a man called Oedipus. The people of Thebes were suffering under the curse of the Sphinx. The Sphinx posed a riddle: What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening? Oedipus arrives and solves the riddle that has defeated everybody else. He becomes a hero. The people make him king because he has done what others could not do.

But Oedipus himself makes a terrible discovery. The man the people had elevated as their saviour is also implicated in the very tragedy from which he is expected to save them. His greatness becomes his weakness. His determination to discover the truth eventually leads him to discover that he himself is part of the tragedy. The more determined he is to discover the truth, the closer he comes to discovering his own guilt. The saviour eventually becomes the problem.

The Oedipus story contains a warning for politicians. The public does not simply want a leader who is competent. It wants a leader who can solve its riddles, explain why life has become difficult, identify the enemy, defeat corruption, restore dignity, create jobs, unite the country and somehow make everything right. But no human being can carry such a burden.

 The story of Theseus offers another fascinating example. Theseus becomes the great Athenian hero after entering the labyrinth and killing the Minotaur. He does what ordinary citizens cannot do. He enters the darkness, confronts the monster and returns victorious. The hero is born because the community has a monster that needs killing. But Theseus eventually discovers the uncomfortable truth about heroes: defeating one monster does not eliminate the problems of governing.

Heroism in the moment of crisis is not the same thing as the patient business of administering a society. A sword can kill a Minotaur. It cannot repair a health system, reform an education system, create employment, or persuade hostile political interests to cooperate. That is where the messianic politician encounters his greatest difficulty. And this could be Sifuna’s problem.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Rome turns Caesar into something larger than an ordinary politician. The crowd celebrates him, cheers him and is captivated by his growing power. Yet the same political environment that elevates him also creates the fears and rivalries that ultimately lead to his assassination. Caesar discovers too late that political adoration can coexist with political suspicion, and that the crowd can move from admiration to condemnation with astonishing speed.

This is the cruelty of political messianism. The higher the pedestal, the greater the fall.

And yes, George Orwell understood the same phenomenon in Animal Farm. The animals begin with a dream of liberation. They want a political order in which they will no longer be oppressed. Yet once the revolutionary leadership becomes concentrated around Napoleon, the promise of liberation gradually turns into another form of domination. The lesson is that a society that places too much faith in personalities creates conditions in which personalities can become more important than institutions. This is precisely why Sifuna should be careful.

Sifuna’s greatest political asset may also become his greatest political liability. He has the ability to speak with energy and clarity in a political environment in which many citizens are tired of carefully calculated political language. But popularity is a strange animal. It does not remain satisfied with what a politician actually is. It begins to demand what the politician ought to be.

My point is that once citizens begin to regard a politician as a messiah, every failure becomes a betrayal. In fact, compromise becomes treachery. Every disagreement becomes evidence that the messiah has fallen.

The messiah is expected to be pure. He must not make ordinary human mistakes or even hesitate. He must not change his mind, compromise, or disappoint. Yet politics is precisely the arena in which compromise, negotiation and imperfection are unavoidable. A leader who tries to satisfy messianic expectations eventually becomes trapped by them.

From the position of a social engineer, my advice to Sifuna is not that he should abandon ambition. No. Kenya needs ambitious leaders. What Kenya does not need is another political saviour.

A messiah promises to rescue the people. A statesman builds institutions through which people can rescue themselves. In simple terms, Sifuna does not need to become Kenya’s messiah. He needs to remain Edwin Sifuna, a human being. If he is treated as a messiah, he will eventually disappoint his followers.

Prof Egara Kabaji is a writer, educationist, and researcher based at Masinde Muliro University. He is also the Vice President of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) and the Chancellor of Mt. Kigali University, Rwanda.