RE: KALONZO MUSYOKA CAN DO BETTER

Dear Countrymen,

The fears about Kalonzo’s opportunism are emerging a lot in his body language and supposedly the thinly veiled insinuations in his press comments.

From the look of things, Kalonzo and Mutula would be thrilled to serve as Minister of Water and the other as Minister of Environment in Kibaki’s government any day.

They cannot wait!

However, the Wananchi are waiting for them to make that blunder and they will meet the full wrath of the Kenya people. Kenya may as well function without the two provinces of Eastern and Central. The country has already demonstrated this by having the majority six provinces elect a president and bypassing the two provinces.

The backbone of the Kikuyu is in Rift Valley, whereas the backbone of the Kamba is in Coast province.

Inspite of their closeness to the city of Nairobi, the Kamba have not made much headway economically here as they have done at the Coast where many of them are in employment, own real estate and have successful small scale and large scale businesses.

These two communities will increasingly find themselves under undue pressure to reach out to other communities and build consensus instead of trying to bulldoze themselves through the corridors of power. They have little choice. And you may now understand why Kalonzo and Kibaki are averse to Majimbo.

With all this in perspective, back to the Kalonzo’s comments to the press yesterday:

“We should not internationalise the current political misunderstanding in the country. This would be a great injustice …….”

Why did Kalonzo make such comments?

Before we get there, Kalonzo should realize that he has totally undermined the confidence the other communities of Kenya had in him to lead this country. He has made blunder after blunder and lost the political compass completely, impressing himself as a traitor in the minds and eyes of Kenyans. How he is going to shed this terrible image, I don’t know.

Based on the current mood and his political goofs, he will never ever lead this country, let alone make it to Vice President. Prayers and being religious is a good thing, but in politics, this alone will not give you national office. God no longer comes to appoint kings from heaven as he did before, he passed own that mandate to the voters after Samuel in them biblical days.

Political astuteness is most important and it is a gift from God. Perhaps this is what Kalonzo should pray for.

He is confirming to the other communities their innermost fears; the Kamba are cousins of the Kikuyu and essentially, a Kamba is a Kikuyu by extension. The other fear is that the Kamba are back stabbers and never take a stand or keep their word. A very dangerous lot indeed.

Some of my comments about tribes in Kenya are taken as fanning tribal sentiments and tribalism, this is never my intention. I have bitten the bullet and decided to take on these tribal issues boldly without hedging. I believe if we don’t we will be walking the wilderness in a circle for along time when we have better things to do for our country.

I have very close Kamba friends as well as Kamba nephews and nieces too. So, it is not about being a tribalist or anything like that.

If Nelson Mandela didn’t stand up and say to the white people;

“No, you are not treating us right! This is wrong!”

The Black man would not be enjoying the rights he does today.

Someone has to tell the King he is naked, if indeed he is.

Kalonzo would wish that the current crisis be domesticated so that he can reap the full benefit, or so he hopes? How selfish can fellas get? Mutula, Kalonzo’s chief adviser supposes that he is politically very smart and can outfox ODM. Let Mutula remember, this is not about hiding the certificate of ODM-K and blackmailing the pentagon members. This is a different ball game and the stakes are much, much higher, this is hard ball and he, Kalonzo and ODM-K may not survive the hits.

At this point in time, the best Kalonzo would have done to redeem his image was to demonstrate his sympathy with the victims of the post election violence, and castigate the perpetrators on both sides but most of all pointing out the vote discrepancies and come out with a clear proposal on a way forward. But the kind of hedging and walking of the hyena’s middle road will not help him much.

Next time you watch Kalonzo on TV, other than the accent which is absent; have you noticed he comments on issues and has a body language very much like Daniel Arap Moi. Even the way he argues issues. And then this is complimented by former president Moi’s adviser and lawyer - Mutula Kilonzo. Nyayo reincarnated. Kalonzo does not represent any tangible change for Kenya other than a face that will look good on the legal tender. His is status quo and back to the dark days!

Apart from a few donors, who do you suppose funded the miniscule Kalonzo campaign? Moi of course.

However, since this is a democratic country and opportunism is part of the game, let them get on with it, we will meet around the bend. ODM-K may just be running full speed into a phalanx around that bend! It may be too late to slow down. So, before they speed down that direction, let them think, think and think again. These are not civil service appointments, this is politics.

Sande
HR Activist
VIHIGA