Today let us just cut to the chase to Mr Uhuru Kenyatta. You may not like it or agree with me but that is life, as it should be.
It’s Kenneth Kaunda, in his book Letter to My Children, who supported divergence in political thought and processes saying the world would be boring if we all agreed on everything and anything. He argued if all the plants were of same colour and hue, height and shape in a flower garden, it would be monotonous.
Last week we were on the talks between Eldoret North legislator William Ruto and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The thread of argument was that Samoei, whose middle name Kipchirchir means someone impatient and always in a hurry, shouldn’t have burnt all his bridges with Tinga and dive headlong onto Uhuru’s political bosom.
We argued politics is unpredictable and what reigns supreme are the competing interests of the actors. In the end it is he or she who guarantees the most gain that we find a common purpose with, for politics hates parasitism and loves symbiotic relationships.
However, in between politicians wish they were parasites! It is more like the way hyenas hunt; one knows too well he can’t bring down the zebra on his own. So they learnt long ago to hunt as a pack, and fight over the kill later, with the mouths dripping saliva of greed and sweet blood from the day’s meal.
But there are those who will argue, and probably rightly, that Ruto dropped Raila and embraced Uhuru, and then turned back and pretended he was still available for Tinga, just to raise his stake as ‘Kingmaker’. This way, he will send both Uhuru and Raila down to their knees, asking for his hand in the political betrothal ahead of elections and get the best bargain.
You are also free to delusion yourself Ruto believes at the bottom of his heart that either Uhuru or Tinga will support him for President — not in the first round at least.
Maybe if he pulls through the miracle of coming first or second in round one, if there will be run off.
The chaotic 2007 election united and divided Raila and Ruto, as well as Mr Musalia Mudavadi and other Pentagon members in ODM.
Oak tree of tribalism
The election roped them into one political strand by way of anti-Kikuyu wave sweeping through the country, and the knot was the common repulsion to Mzee Mwai Kibaki’s seeming willingness to continue watering the oak tree of tribalism and corruption from State House.
So they came up with one chant, which was Change! Change!
But then the elections went the way it did, and the least we can say is that Kibaki pulled all the buttons of incumbency, supported by something evil called top-up, to ring-fence State House against ‘intrusion’ by a ‘Jaruo’ shouting he was the winner.
When Raila eventually signed the power-sharing deal, those who know will tell you Ruto was the most deflated, and that is why I said the election united and divided them.
He felt Raila had rushed to sign the deal and pick the sleek motorcade, and that the deal was unfair to ODM, and worse still, it was fragile since the reins of power still were wrapped around his thick fingers. So what better way to humiliate Raila and chart his own political course by first, as we said last week, isolating Rift Valley from ODM, then embracing the very ‘enemy’ Raila had chosen even harder and more tightly.
This is what young men know; when snubbed by a girl, they ‘tune’ her best friend so that she would come kneeling just to prove a point.
Now here is where Uhuru comes in. This thing is beyond Ruto-Uhuru so-called forced union over The Hague cases. When everything was going his way, Uhuru did something that must have unsettled Ruto as much as Central Kenya’s spare-wheel called Mudavadi alias UDF.
Whatever Uhuru did, if he does not change course, he will automatically resuscitate the 2007 ODM campaign platform, which in muted tones is called 41 against One.
Uhuru systematically locked all doors of Central Kenya, including even some small windows like Mr Kiraitu Murungi’s mbus, and as we saw it, just this week, he is also about to swallow Mwangi Kiunjuri’s GNU.
That’s why you no longer hear of Ruto and Mudavadi hanging around Mt Kenya. The delusion that voters here can vote for someone else other than their own is quickly dissipating. For in truth, far much more ferociously than Ruto has done in Rift, Mudavadi in Western and Raila in Nyanza, in Gema-dominated constituencies, TNA and Uhuru are like a religion.
So you can understand why Ruto then decided to cunningly swallow his pride, and is trying to squeeze the best of deals from either Uhuru or Raila. Probably deep in his heart he trusts neither, but wants to see who he can ‘use’ the most without appearing he is the one being ‘used’.
Loose change
In short, Uhuru has unwittingly refocused national attention onto the PNU-style politics of 2007, and in the process rekindled debate whether Kenya is ready for a third President from the Kikuyu Nation, and again, if his community would ever support someone else, at least in terms of resounding numbers, other than mundu wa nyumba (homeboy).
Now don’t tell me TNA leadership has the face of Kenya; some faces are just good for window-dressing.
There is nothing surprising about what Nancy Baraza has done, she was pushing a rock up the hill and it was just a matter of time before she gave up and let it roll down.
I am sure she won’t walk out empty-handed and will spare loose change to share with Rebecca Kemunto in the coming civil suit. The writer is Managing Editor, Daily Editions, at The Standard.
ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke
It’s Kenneth Kaunda, in his book Letter to My Children, who supported divergence in political thought and processes saying the world would be boring if we all agreed on everything and anything. He argued if all the plants were of same colour and hue, height and shape in a flower garden, it would be monotonous.
Last week we were on the talks between Eldoret North legislator William Ruto and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The thread of argument was that Samoei, whose middle name Kipchirchir means someone impatient and always in a hurry, shouldn’t have burnt all his bridges with Tinga and dive headlong onto Uhuru’s political bosom.
We argued politics is unpredictable and what reigns supreme are the competing interests of the actors. In the end it is he or she who guarantees the most gain that we find a common purpose with, for politics hates parasitism and loves symbiotic relationships.
However, in between politicians wish they were parasites! It is more like the way hyenas hunt; one knows too well he can’t bring down the zebra on his own. So they learnt long ago to hunt as a pack, and fight over the kill later, with the mouths dripping saliva of greed and sweet blood from the day’s meal.
But there are those who will argue, and probably rightly, that Ruto dropped Raila and embraced Uhuru, and then turned back and pretended he was still available for Tinga, just to raise his stake as ‘Kingmaker’. This way, he will send both Uhuru and Raila down to their knees, asking for his hand in the political betrothal ahead of elections and get the best bargain.
You are also free to delusion yourself Ruto believes at the bottom of his heart that either Uhuru or Tinga will support him for President — not in the first round at least.
Maybe if he pulls through the miracle of coming first or second in round one, if there will be run off.
The chaotic 2007 election united and divided Raila and Ruto, as well as Mr Musalia Mudavadi and other Pentagon members in ODM.
Oak tree of tribalism
The election roped them into one political strand by way of anti-Kikuyu wave sweeping through the country, and the knot was the common repulsion to Mzee Mwai Kibaki’s seeming willingness to continue watering the oak tree of tribalism and corruption from State House.
So they came up with one chant, which was Change! Change!
But then the elections went the way it did, and the least we can say is that Kibaki pulled all the buttons of incumbency, supported by something evil called top-up, to ring-fence State House against ‘intrusion’ by a ‘Jaruo’ shouting he was the winner.
When Raila eventually signed the power-sharing deal, those who know will tell you Ruto was the most deflated, and that is why I said the election united and divided them.
He felt Raila had rushed to sign the deal and pick the sleek motorcade, and that the deal was unfair to ODM, and worse still, it was fragile since the reins of power still were wrapped around his thick fingers. So what better way to humiliate Raila and chart his own political course by first, as we said last week, isolating Rift Valley from ODM, then embracing the very ‘enemy’ Raila had chosen even harder and more tightly.
This is what young men know; when snubbed by a girl, they ‘tune’ her best friend so that she would come kneeling just to prove a point.
Now here is where Uhuru comes in. This thing is beyond Ruto-Uhuru so-called forced union over The Hague cases. When everything was going his way, Uhuru did something that must have unsettled Ruto as much as Central Kenya’s spare-wheel called Mudavadi alias UDF.
Whatever Uhuru did, if he does not change course, he will automatically resuscitate the 2007 ODM campaign platform, which in muted tones is called 41 against One.
Uhuru systematically locked all doors of Central Kenya, including even some small windows like Mr Kiraitu Murungi’s mbus, and as we saw it, just this week, he is also about to swallow Mwangi Kiunjuri’s GNU.
That’s why you no longer hear of Ruto and Mudavadi hanging around Mt Kenya. The delusion that voters here can vote for someone else other than their own is quickly dissipating. For in truth, far much more ferociously than Ruto has done in Rift, Mudavadi in Western and Raila in Nyanza, in Gema-dominated constituencies, TNA and Uhuru are like a religion.
So you can understand why Ruto then decided to cunningly swallow his pride, and is trying to squeeze the best of deals from either Uhuru or Raila. Probably deep in his heart he trusts neither, but wants to see who he can ‘use’ the most without appearing he is the one being ‘used’.
Loose change
In short, Uhuru has unwittingly refocused national attention onto the PNU-style politics of 2007, and in the process rekindled debate whether Kenya is ready for a third President from the Kikuyu Nation, and again, if his community would ever support someone else, at least in terms of resounding numbers, other than mundu wa nyumba (homeboy).
Now don’t tell me TNA leadership has the face of Kenya; some faces are just good for window-dressing.
There is nothing surprising about what Nancy Baraza has done, she was pushing a rock up the hill and it was just a matter of time before she gave up and let it roll down.
I am sure she won’t walk out empty-handed and will spare loose change to share with Rebecca Kemunto in the coming civil suit. The writer is Managing Editor, Daily Editions, at The Standard.
ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke
