Friday, April 1, 2011

IT WAS ONE HELL OF A WEEK FOR KALONZO MUSYOKA

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By Jerry Okungu

Nairobi, Kenya

March 30, 2011

It all started with Wiki leaks implicating Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka in the most unpleasant manner and especially his conversations with American Embassy officials way back in 2007 concerning President Mwai Kibaki. At one point, Wiki leaks reported that Kalonzo had asked the American Ambassador to impress upon President GW Bush to convince Kibaki to abandon the 2007 race in Kalonzo’s favour since, according to Kalonzo, the President was too ill to run the country. In fact according to Wiki leaks, Kalonzo is reported to have alleged that Kibaki slept on the job.

As the dust seemed to settle on this expose, another one, more devastating was to follow. This time, Kalonzo was alleged to have touched the raw nerves of the First Family when he was reported to have told the American Ambassador that the First Lady only moved to State House in the early days of Kibaki administration when she realized that there were night meetings at State House involving questionable characters. This allegation so irked the First Lady that she issued a stern press release castigating Kalonzo’s allegations.

In his characteristic fashion, Kalonzo played down these leaks claiming that they were mere rumours collected by the American Embassy officials. What observers could not fail to notice was why of all the people, the American Embassy would single out Kalonzo Musyoka and attribute those unflattering comments to him when there were so many other political opponents of Kibaki at that time.

If truth be told, our leaders have this crave of talking to foreign diplomats whenever called upon to do so. Those dinners, courtesy calls and lunch dates that have become our way of diplomatic engagement have created fertile grounds and opportunities for competing political players to badmouth one another. For this reason, there is plausible ground that Kalonzo might have uttered those unpleasant statements about Kibaki whom he was competing for the presidency little knowing that a year down the line, he would be Kibaki’s Vice President. His attempt to dismiss Wiki leaks as mere rumours must therefore be seen as an attempt to save face and his current job.

As the week progressed, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta went into overdrive with an onslaught against Raila Odinga with high profile public rallies that were well covered by Citizen TV the whole week. Incidentally Raila Odinga their target of attack chose to either go underground or simply ignore their utterances.

In their last rally in Muranga, Uhuru Kenyatta went a step further and declared that they had no problems with the people of Nyanza. Their only enemy that they were ready to deal with was Raila Odinga.

One glaring development was the sudden absence of Kalonzo Musyoka from these high profile rallies yet he was in the country prompting observers to assume that the original KKK was becoming KK- meaning that it was possible Ruto and Uhuru were dumping Kalonzo and possibly replacing him with Eugene Wamalwa from Western Province. However, observers were quick to question the relevance of Eugene Wamalwa in this marriage of convenience when it was obvious he was no Kijana Wamalwa or Musalia Mudavadi to rally the Luhya votes behind him.

As the PNU brigade was crisscrossing the country with the single purpose of discrediting Raila Odinga as much as possible, the Orange House was creating its own uncalled for problems. After a section of the ODM parliamentarians met and chose to hire lawyers for William Ruto, Henry Kosgei and Joshua Sang during the Hague trials, it would appear like there were no sufficient consultations because soon after, the party Secretary General , Prof Anyang Nyongo called his own press conference to disown the earlier announcement. Matters became murkier for the ODM when the William Ruto faction rejected the party offer with Joshua Sang going a step further to decline ODM funding because he was not and had never been an ODM member.

Joshua Sang’s reason for rejecting the ODM funding revealed something he may not have intended. If indeed he participated in the 2007-2008 disturbances without being an ODM member, then what was his motivation? Could it be that the likes of Sang might have participated in the mayhem for their own reasons other than protesting against the stolen votes? Did Sang participate as a Kalenjin rather than as a political activist?

The PNU may have its problems just like all the other parties however; it is strange that a party like the ODM that has millions of followers cannot implement a simple structure that provides for one spokesman to articulate its public policy issues. The moment we have every Tom, Dick and Harry calling a press conference to issue statements, it will be the end of ODM as we have known it in the last six years. Unless of course it was intentional to fast-track its demise and form another party in readiness for the next elections.

With so many bills pending in Parliament, why are we allowing so many MPs to travel to The Hague on an ego trip? What value are they going to add at the ICC? I hope some naughty Dutch policeman doesn’t get overzealous and quarantines them at the airport- a real possibility in a European country.

jerryokungu@gmail.com

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