Who in CORD will sacrifice presidential ambitions?

The world around us works by cause and effect. Though not always obvious, any event we perceive is always brought about by one or several preceding occurrences. The concept of cause and effect is so inbuilt in our brains that artists use it to create optical illusions otherwise known as magic tricks, where our brains are tricked into perceiving an event without logical cause.

Psychologists have speculated that the reason infants find the game ‘peek a boo’ captivating is because their minds do not understand that when you hide your face behind a curtain, you do not go out of existence. They are therefore delighted when it appears to them that you vanish and reappear. Babies do not comprehend cause and effect.

Within our political establishment, there is emerging people who continue to demonstrate a most rudimentary understanding of causality. They expect that the environment around them will warp and manipulate itself in such a manner as to fulfill their fantasies, instead of the other way round. They can mount terrific tantrums when this fails to happen. Naturally, given their shaky credentials, they have chosen to acquire a most debilitating variance of the “me too” syndrome, where “me too” and “it’s my turn” are the only foundations of their ambitions.

The Swahili say “huwezi vuna mihogo kwenye shamba la miwa”, what you sow is exactly what you reap. Running for President is serious business only to be undertaken by those capable of maintaining sufficient traction with reality. If your most fervent fantasy is merely to run for president, this is a relatively straight forward affair. If you however actually mean to put up a credible bid for the highest office in the land, that is a different matter altogether. Such an endeavour requires a leap of intuition necessary to comprehend the fact that things do not occur on their own instance. They are painstakingly envisioned, built, planned and executed.

I believe those who formed or joined CORD did so out of a commonality of purpose. It is perhaps in the examination of that purpose that we may differ. At least as far as I know, the coalition exists to save this country from the malaise of corruption, inequity, tribalism, marginalisation and the entire spectrum of evil that is the Jubilee coalition.

Of course the coalition’s candidate has to win the election for this to happen but surely one or the other of the three coalition principals becoming President is of secondary importance to saving an entire nation, isn’t it? What are we then to make of the veiled threats by some in the coalition to jeopardise the nation’s only hope of salvation simply because they have been told the argument “me too” is insufficient to make them flag bearer? Does that not expose the duplicity, selfishness and gravitas deficit of those who would attempt such blackmail? Are they really in it to save the country or is it about them becoming President?

Tragically, some have already envisioned themselves as President and no objections will be taken. The incubus who commissions such reveries in them has however failed to provide them with anything remotely approaching a strategy of how such a thing could come to pass.

Unless some fairy has granted these fellows three wishes, we are likely to see them continue insisting that ‘me too’ and ‘it is now my turn’ are in and of themselves complete and compelling reasons why we should coalesce around them and say ‘Tosha’.

Truth is, there is secret acknowledgement, even among the “me too” choir that they face an uphill task snatching the ticket from frontrunner Raila Odinga. They know he is a compelling, even unmatchable argument for the opposition flag bearer. They see and acknowledge the effect that is Raila Odinga, but they completely fail to grasp the cause.