What is Makau Mutua's problem with Raila

About Makau Mutua, it's interesting you brought up the topic since I discussed it last evening with my wife who also happens to be Mkamba. She raised a very interesting point that unveils Makau Mutua's big contradiction.

The article was two-pronged, on one hand an unveiled display of hate towards Raila's ethnic community (Luo) and on the other hand, a veiled campaign for his Kamba tribesman Kalonzo Musyoka. She (my wife) referred to Mutua's article as a job application letter, I'll explain later.

Mutua claims that (Quoting him)......." In him (Raila) lies the dream of the region(Luo) for salvation from the claws of the Kenyan state. Only a presidency by Mr Odinga can cure this communal psychosis."......

Mutua makes the wild claim that the Luo are indeed afflicted by a communal psychosis (madness). He insinuates that the Luo in isolation, are crying victim to claws of the Kenyan state and need to basically go to Mathare to cure their madness of believing that Raila can be president. That's the crux of Mutua's hateful and ethnic-laced piece.

My Kamba wife thinks it is in fact Mutua who is psychotic. She rebutts that the entire citizenry of Kenya is victim to bad governance, fleecing of public coffers, grand corruption, unequal distribution of national resources and unprecedented tribalism.

She points at the log in Mutua's eye when she reminds Makau Mutua, at the local level, that his native Ukambani has not been spared from the same claws of Kenyan state power (& it's misuse), which have resulted in Ukambani lagging miles behind the rest of the nation (including Raila's native region) in terms of provision of basic services like water.

The stupidity exposed by the article is that Makau Mutua doesn't realize the blatant contradiction in the fact that he identifies himself as a reformist yet he now shores up naked support for one of the greatest yesteryear stumbling blocks to reforms in Kalonzo Musyoka,..... simply because he is his fellow Mkamba.

In the early 90s, Makau Mutua vehemently supported the group of second-liberators that included akina Kamau Kuria, Orengo, Nyongo, Willy Mutunga, Raila, Kiraitu (believe it or not) and others who sent a delegation to present Kenya's case for multi-partyism in a special Foreign Policy congressional committee hearing at the Congress, Washington DC.

At that very sitting in Washington, on the other side, rebutting the reformists' heated debate was Moi's representative, none other than Kalonzo Musyoka, viciously arguing against multi-party politics in Kenya, warning of dire consequences and literal ruining of Kenya should it be introduced. The verbose Mutua having traveled miles to Kiraitu's Silver-Sping, Maryland apartment, never minced his words then about his dislike of status quo-ists like Kalonzo.

Today, Makau Mutua conveniently drums up support for the same status quo-ist honestly because he sees his fellow tribesman Kalonzo Musyoka having a shot at the presidency. That's the fallacy here, it's Ukabila stupid! In my view, Makau Mutua is a closeted tribalist slowly crawling into the open and exposing his hate not only towards Raila, but to his entire community. The "sick" Makau Mutua thinks he's above the collective intelligence of that community, even contemptuously offering them free psychiatric diagnosis & prescription to boot.

Once a rabid supporter of Kibaki, Makau Mutua switched stand having been denied a job as head of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He had previously anticipated that TRC job which he expected his friend Kiraitu Murungi to hand to him on a silver platter, through the cronyism that's characteristic of Kibaki's government.

After it dawned on him that Kibaki was never going to set up such a commission (TRC), and having watched his friends like Maina Kiai (formerly of Washington DC) assuming their positions in Kenya at the Human Rights commission,....the man was upset and switched camp. He is now a vicious Kibaki critic. In his books, Kibaki was good so long as Mutua was guaranteed a job. Kibaki is now a tribalist because he didn't get his job. We all know his motivation here.

Mutua now advances quasi-intellectual arguments stuffed with anti-Raila propaganda simply to drum support for his tribesman KalonzoMusyoka, period. Everybody else including Kibaki is bad today, since this is supposedly Kalonzo's chance.

Thus, exposing the veil, Mutua's article was all about the allegation that Kenyatta, Moi, Kibaki and Raila (with his community), are all tribalists and Kalonzo Musyoka should be the president, period. Mutua has today re-invented himself not as a reformist, but a "crusader" for Kalonzo's presidency. That's his right. He is falsely deluded into thinking that Raila's ethnic community is the stumbling block to his homeboy's chances.

Mutua assumes too, that he's a technocrat-in-waiting in a Kalonzo government. A psychotic tribalist anxious to return to Kenya into a plum job.

Job Wapili