Fear of the Luo

Hi Nyar Kager,
  Some uru gik ma jindiko ma wayudo ka wa London.Mar Koigi nyiso kaka ogendini moko Kenya oluoro Joluo kendo olur ni kik jaluo kaw loch.
  
  Joseph
  
            

  
           
                            Commentaries
      
  What’s it of Kibaki that irks Njonjo so much? Standard Fri 10/11/06
   
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  By Muthui Kariuki
  Mr Charles Mugane Njonjo makes his views and opinions on national life,
ranging from religion, politics, abortion and constitutional view, public and he
is entitled to them.
 
But is he entitled, 43 years after independence, to tell outright lies about the
Kikuyu, Kenya’s history or the focus of much of his weird political hatred,
President Mwai Kibaki? A burning question about Njonjo persists: What is it
about Kibaki that makes Njonjo see red, grow goose pimples and foam at the mouth?
 
When Kibaki was Vice-President, Njonjo, then Attorney-General, set a village
mate, Mr George Githii, the then chairman of the Standard Newspapers, on him.  Githii launched an unprecedented media campaign of vilification against Kibaki, culminating in his infamous editorial remark that it was "no big deal being VP".
  In the aftermath of the abortive August, 1982, coup, Kibaki issued a statement cautioning those who thrived on lies and rumours against heaping blame for the near-putsch on politicians. Analysts across the political divide promptly read that warning as tailor-made for Njonjo and his attack terriers. For once, Njonjo did not snap back at a Kibaki remark. Within months of the coup attempt, he was brought crashing down from his pedestal in the Cabinet and Kanu.
  Twenty-three years later, Kibaki is President and Commander-in-Chief, Njonjo is long retired but still smarting from unrealised political ambitions, Moi is retired but seeking to work closely with Kibaki and Njonjo’s terrier, Githii,
has not been heard of for a long time.
  But Njonjo’s hatred for Kibaki is boiling over. Indeed, so opposed to Kibaki
has Njonjo become that a year ago this month, he attended his first non-Government political rally since the pre-Independence era — the Orange
Democratic Movement (ODM) referendum victory party at Uhuru Park, Nairobi.
  It was at the rally that Njonjo pronounced: "I am sorry to be a Kikuyu." He
has been wringing his hands since then, uttering all sorts of dire warnings on
what he calls the isolation of central Kenya from the rest of the country.
  The referendum results, in which seven of the eight provinces rejected the
Draft Constitution, led Njonjo to repeatedly declare that never before have
central Kenya communities been as isolated from the rest of the nation as during the Kibaki presidency. At the launch of ODM-Kenya’s Central Kenya Initiative last month, Njonjo and Lang’ata MP Mr Raila Odinga put a new spin on the Kibaki administration. Njonjo was typified as a man who had no time for tribalism, incompetence and corruption.
  The sub-text of the songs of praise for Njonjo was that the President had time
for the vices. This comes as no surprise. Njonjo’s career has involved historical revisionism II in 1966, the year Njonjo and slain former Cabinet minister Tom Mboya were busy moving legislative heaven and earth to thwart Jaramogi and mischievous sleight-of-hand.
  The truth is not that Njonjo abhors tribalism, incompetence and corruption but
that, for decades, they defined the Africanisation of any sector of the economy
for Njonjo and his cohorts. As for Kibaki suddenly becoming associated with
condoning the vices is a brand new spin from ODM-Kenya alongside the October 20 accusations that the President is habitually abusive of the Opposition. Both are thinly veiled fiction of recent manufacture in readiness for a dirty election campaign next year.
  This is why the proponents of the initiative have resorted to the tallest-tale-teller of politics ahead of the poll — Njonjo. It is based on the wrong assumption that the rest of Kenya has been pacified by the cult of Odingaism and accordingly prostrated itself before Raila’s second bid for the
presidency, and only central Kenya was holding out from the inexorable force of "an idea whose time has come".
  All his life, Njonjo has laboured to project himself as the most anglicised
Kenyan. One would wonder aloud why he has not allowed a biography on his life, times and thoughts or penned an autobiography. It is in the Anglo-Saxon
tradition for people of Njonjo’s pre-eminence to write memoirs. Njonjo has
carefully avoided this. Why?
  Part of the answer is that Njonjo has been involved in a campaign of
vilification and lies against selected individuals and groups that cannot stand
intelligent scrutiny.
  And the reason that Njonjo won’t tell the story of his life is because his
beloved Britons have never honoured him. Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana, only a year younger than Njonjo, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth Oginga Odinga, Raila’s father and Kenya’s first Vice-President.
  Ghana, Nigeria and the Gambia, too, have Anglophiles of Njonjo’s generation
who the Queen knighted a long time ago. Where are British honours for Njonjo?  What is more, no one has ever accused him of fighting for Independence, not even the British. Once Independence was secured and he had ensconced himself in the Jomo Kenyatta entourage, he was key to ensuring that many of those who contributed to the liberation struggle were sidelined.
  Kenyans should be grateful that Njonjo was nowhere on the scene during the
fight for multi-partyism otherwise the likes of Raila, Charles Rubia and Kenneth
Matiba could have faced worse consequences. Njonjo gave apartheid South Africa moral support while the rest of Africa and world made it a pariah state. As for the Central Kenya Initiative, the forces behind it will hear from the region on election day.
  The writer is a public relations consultant in Nairobi
  mkariuki@prmasters.co.ke
   
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  There is more to this Raila, Njonjo political marriage
  KOIGI Wa Wamwere
  At a glance, Raila Odinga, the son of one of Kenya’s greatest heroes, Oginga
Odinga is in strange company with Sir Charles Njonjo. They seem incongruous, but they are not.
  I have said before and will say it again. The ideology of ODM Kenya is not
just tribalism, but eliminationist anti-Kikuyu tribalism. Recently, we saw Raila
and Njonjo come together to accuse the Kikuyu of tribalism and isolationism, a
charge the British made against them when they fought for independence and urged them to save themselves by joining ODM Kenya!
  But why should the Kikuyu people join a party whose ideology, strength and
under-belly is Kikuyu hate and mission, their destruction, horrors of the recent
Rwandan genocide notwithstanding? Once, Sir Charles Njonjo, the leading
architect and author of one-party dictatorship, legal tyranny and police State
in Kenya, led the Government in imprisoning innocent Kenyans on trumped up
charges, subjecting them to police torture, emasculating Parliament and the
Judiciary, silencing the whole country with terror, harassing, denying work and
detaining people like Raila and me and condoning the assassinations of heroes
like Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya and JM Kariuki.
  Was it not Njonjo who blocked Odinga’s return to Parliament in 1980? When I saw Njonjo and Raila, the hunter and the hunted of yesteryear together, I wondered, what could bring the two together? One reason is Raila’s desperation for Njonjo or the devil himself, to say “Raila Tosha” and bless his quest for presidency.
  Second is their shared hatred for Kikuyu. Third is that Njonjo and Raila are
in ODM Kenya together though playing games with one another. Though they beckon the Kikuyu, both Njonjo and Raila are passionate Kikuyu haters. They call upon them to join ODM Kenya as a lion would invite a sheep to slaughter.
  I have no doubt that Raila is a Kikuyu hater. When Moi detained us, he blamed the Kikuyu more than Moi. His cooperation with Moi in Kanu was built upon their shared hatred for the Kikuyu. After the referendum, Raila commended Uhuru and Joseph Kamotho for coming from inside “adui”, the enemy and defined the outcome of the referendum as a victory over the Kikuyu.
  Since, he has never apologized. Repeatedly, he blames Kikuyu ethnic
chauvinists “with whom he will lump me after this article” for arguing against
his presidency on silly grounds of circumcision “ and I totally agree with him”
but fails to see tribalism on his own side. On October 21, 2006, Kilemi Mwiria
and I were invited to a secondary school in Kisumu for a fundraising walk. But
we could not go because our hosts were threatened that after our visit the school would be burnt down, partly because of fears of Raila.
  Wouldn’t president Raila rule Kenya the way he tyrannizes Luo-Nyanza? After writing this article, will Raila let our friends in Kisumu be or send goons
after them? As for Njonjo, he is worse than a Kikuyu hater. Already, he has
apologized for being a Kikuyu. There was a time he could not shake hands with a Luo for fear of contracting cholera.
  After shaking hands with Raila, he must wash hands with a very strong
detergent. In 1981, Njonjo warned me against asking questions in Parliament for Luo MPs and told Onyango Midika he was not clever enough because he was uncircumcised. Let someone else blame the Kikuyu for tribalism but not Njonjo.  He has no moral authority. But Njonjo does not only hate the Kikuyu and the Luo.  He also hates Africans.
  After independence he could not fly in a plane that was piloted by an African.
Black people were inferior and could never make competent pilots! The sight of Raila and Njonjo together surprised me at how desperate Raila is for the
presidency. It also confirms to me that their ideology “anti-Kikuyu tribalism”
is the ideology of the ODM Kenya and suggests to me two other things.
  If Raila can cohabit with Njonjo, the ultimate Luo and Kikuyu hater, he too is
a Luo hater and ODM Kenya brings together not just Njonjo and Raila, but all
those who hate the Kikuyu and the Luo. Raila and Njonjo are also united by their shared hatred for the Kibaki government. Raila hates Kibaki for two reasons. He is Kikuyu and betrayed the MoU that would have made him co-president. On his part, Njonjo hates Kibaki because he is not the dictator Njonjo is and has betrayed the British by trading with countries like China.
  To both, Kibaki must go. But they are not alone. The Swahili say, where you
see ambergris, you see fossil gum-copal. Where you see Njonjo, Moi is there. The two are British Siamese twins. But where you see the two, you also see the
British. If Njonjo is in ODM Kenya, Moi too is there. To stay government’s hand in corruption cases however, Moi sedates Kibaki while Njonjo attacks him, until the right time. Since Moi and Njonjo are in ODM Kenya, British financial support is there, denials notwithstanding.
  When the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Moi and Njonjo tyrannized Kenya, the British supported them to the hilt. I hear, ODM Kenya is a British, Moi and Njonjo project whose presidential candidate is Kalonzo Musyoka and Gideon Moi, vice-president because they distrust Raila as they did his father and Uhuru is unelectable as an MP. As a vehicle of Kikuyu hate, British and quisling
interests, Kanu has become moribund. It had to re-incarnate itself in ODM Kenya.  Will Raila say, Kalonzo Tosha? Yes, he will, for a prize that befits kingmakers, because Steadman poll will continue to portray him less popular than Kalonzo and therefore unelectable as president and someone will convince him that, despite his fallout with Kibaki, with a strong position in Government, president Kalonzo will be easy to manipulate. Good luck my brother Raila.
  The writer is MP for Subukia and an Assistant Minister of Information and
Communications.