Musalia Mudavadi's comments about an Idi Amin within ODM has caused plenty of anxiety within the party supporters and insiders. He did not make matters any better by trying to brush off his earlier comments telling white lies to the press that he meant that there were dictators within and outside ODM.
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Also pubished today
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A house divided cannot stand
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However insiders within ODM-Kenya now think that they have identified the person Mudavadi was really referring to.
Apparently recent rulings by the chairman of the council of elders within the party who have been mandated with the hairy and hyper-sensitive task of finding an acceptable way of selecting the party's flag bearer have not gone down well with the former Vice President.
The chairman is of course one Fred "Kaa Ngumu" Ngumo. It is said that one of the rulings which Mudavadi and others feel should be discussed in more detail is the requirement that all presidential hopefuls come up with a fee of Kshs 2 million to qualify for consideration.
Not only Mudavadi but a number of ODM presidential hopefuls are feeling the heat from Mr Ngumo's harsh rulings n recent times and feel that they are highly dictatorial, more so because of the finality with which they are delivered.
However considering the Kshs 2 million fee, there is a lot of sense in what Mr Ngumo is saying. A candidate who cannot raise such a small amount of money is unlikely to be able to achieve the kind of fundraising required for a presidential candidate and is therefore just wasting everybody' time.
According to my estimates, a presidential candidate in Kenya today requires a minimum of about 50 million just to carry out a respectable campaign and not necessarily a winning one. And we have not even taken into consideration the fact that it is clear the incumbent is puling out all stops as far as spending is concerned in this presidential race that is expected to be the most bruising in the history of elections in Kenya.
In fact the reluctance by most of the leading presidential candidates to pay a mere Kshs 2 million seems to gave ruled out the possibility of direct primaries to select the ODM presidential candidate. Some observers had indicated that the only way direct elections can be paid for is by each of the candidates sharing the bill of such an exercise which would come to a minimum of about Kshs 5 million each (including the so called fringe candidates.)
Incidentally the only person who has had no problems with Ngumo's decisive rulings so far is one Raila Odinga the man most Kenyans believe Musalia Mudavadi was referring to in his remarks. Kalonzo Musyoka handlers are also said to be quite nervous about the power which this council of elders that "came from nowhere" seems to have accumulated within such a short time of existence.
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ODM and all the other Kanu variants (yes Naka-K included) are nothing but masters of deceit. Kenya are boxed (or rather boxed themselves) into a corner. They want genuine change while their remin captives and slaves of their own making.
ReplyDeleteOnly focussed politicians and party excluding the present pack can deliver us from this sloth. Buth having watered the seed of eating chiefs and commercialized politics we cannot have our cake and gobble it leave alone baking it. Look around you and what do you see? Tired and synonymous political political faces some of which belong to the zoo. And how we pamper these (physical and ideas) dinosaurs is a perfect study of self betrayal - knowing what is wrong and failling to fix it while you have the powers.
If the likes of Gumo are the saints left with the task of shaping our political future then we need not harangue Prof Karume for his stirling porfomance at defence or Ndile for his superlative promotion of tourism.
We are stuck in a time warp and our politicians have made us pawns in their selfish games. When they say jump we obediently ask how high as they loot and rape our integrity, conscience and wealth.
It is both insensitive and a dearth of intellectual creativity to craft the so-called council of elders since these scoundrels don't measure to any of these words. Elders are associated with wisdom which they lack in plenty and as for council, whose constituency are they representing anyway?
Playing to the gallary is cheap politics and if ODM-K chaps want us to take them seriously they better start acting so. Surely you just don't wake up one day and after saving some village girl from forced marriage dream being Kenya's president. Not even having being a councillor. Whatever mauled out time-tested traditional saying of crawling before walking?
Look at who is complaining about 2M? Presidencyy is no walk into the park and those owning district equivalents for land must not insult our collective intelligence with cheap populism. Why be part of a process whose tenets you start betraying even before you lock the lips that sealed the same deal? Hypocracy is our politicians' forte and we help them scale that ladder with our obsession to protect one of our own.
We don't need aliens from outer space to invade our country, we are our worst enemies. But all is not lost we have the oppportunity for a renewal if only we drop the pretence to tribal loyalty. Kenyans are a very bright and industrious lot except we tend to put our mouths, hearts and heads a sunder and what sufferes is our motherland.
Luos are the most intelligent people in Kenya, take it or leave it. My apologies to you all brothers and sisters for my nasty comments on this blog (eg calling you stone-throwers!), but I'm still tired of the stereotypes against Kyuks. I'm still Kikuyu woman and proud of it.Chris, please stop the smear campaign against Kyuks.
ReplyDeleteOne love!
It's time to bid goodbye to ethnic stereotypes and forge unity
Story by WILLIAM OCHIENG
Publication Date: 5/2/2007
There is a rather absurd idea, doing its rounds in the country, that a Luo cannot be elected President of Kenya. In particular, it is Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga’s enemies that are spreading the unfortunate myth. Because the idea has been repeated again and again one comes across presumably intelligent Kenyans who believe in it, and swear by it.
Such characterisation is not new. In deed, we inherited such absurd ideas from our former rulers, the British, who characterised each and every Kenyan community, and allowed their lie to spread. The Akamba were said to be good only as soldiers and sexists. The Kikuyu were characterised as unreliable and treacherous.
The Luo were regarded as dependable but a bit conceited. In their characterisation the British did not know where to fit the Luyia, whom they tended to regard as loyal but ambivalent. However, the British regarded the Abagusii as preposterous.
THE LUO, LIKE EACH KENYAN community, have got their cultural attributes which stand out uniquely. They are, for example, loud and sometimes boisterous. Like the other Kenyan communities, the Luo believe that they are the best amongst Kenyans. But at the end of the day the Luo, are just like any other Kenyans.
They have effectively participated in the politics of Kenya’s freedom struggle and integration since the British put Kenya together. They have provided labour and professionalism, according to their ability, and they have also intermarried extensively across the republic.
Politically, the Luo have been in the thick and thin of national debates and growth. For a long time they provided labour union leadership to Kenyans, and they were in the forefront in the struggle and call to release the Mau Mau freedom fighters, who were harshly incarcerated by the British.
But the Luo have also played pivotal roles in other sectors of Kenyan history, and particularly in the history of education, as teachers and lecturers from elementary schools to universities. Thus, the Luo have been integral to Kenya’s political, economic, intellectual and social evolution. Why, then, would anyone sit aside and contemplate excluding the Luo from the top leadership of this country? Or is the idea simply a tribalist contemplate?
Democratic politics is a game of intrigues, persuasion, trust and numbers. It is those four elements that matter. Can’t a Luo handle these phenomena? The Luo are an important segment of the population and must loudly resist the myth that one of them cannot be elected by other Kenyans to lead this country.
Sometimes I stiffen when Kenyans label communities with non-scientific hues. Because the Mungiki have been involved in shady, murky and sometimes murderous activities, some Kenyans think that the Kikuyu are like the Mungiki, without realising that, in fact, the Kikuyu are a normal community, and have suffered more from the Mungiki criminality than any other Kenyans.
But we have also often painted the Kamba, Somali and Luyia with such nonrepresentative colours. Is there a way in which these hallucinations can be eradicated? We seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into isolated ethnicist traps, instead of embracing each other and saying goodbye to stereotypes.
I think that ultimately we must re-design our educational system as a way of getting rid of tribalism and ethnic myths. An attempt must be made to mix Kenyan students in all our high schools, like the British during the colonial period, so that Kenyan youth integrate, learn and appreciate their common destiny together early in life.
WHO OF OUR PRESIDENTIAL aspirants can lead us out of this tribalist trap? This irrational, bigoted and selfish mindset? In a globalising world, we cannot afford to remain tribalist and pre-modern. We must free our minds from village theories and head out into the bigger world that is beckoning at us. We must think like Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere and George Padmore did.
Tribalism is a curable sickness of the mind, and a big attempt must be made to re-design the mind and an equally big attempt must be designed to clear tribalism from our brains.
Hey Chris, Musalia was very specific. He alluded the dictator is among the ODM presidential ticket contenders. Gumo is no presidential contender - but I sure like him for his no nonsense bare knuckle approach to politics. Gumo asks; Do you know some of the so called ODM presidential aspirants cannot even qualify to be elected as councillors?
ReplyDeleteBy the way Chris, and for the benefit of those bloggers outside Kenya, I hope you and your local bloggers saw the Raila's campaign roadshow in Nairobi the other day. What a spectacle! I hope you enjoyed Raila's mammoth political rally in Kawangware (Congo) the same day. I wonder why you havent posted anything to record this as I consider it a major milestone in our politics and an event which will most certainly culminate to an end of one of Kenya's worst tradgedies - the election of one Mwai Kibaki in 2002.
Even after government annoucing several "goodies" for workers at yesterday's Labour Day festivities at Uhuru Park- I watched in awe as the limousines and state-of-art 4x4s carrying VIPs headed for state house luncheon, and the workers who were in attendance ignored the VIPs and mobbed their president -in-waiting (Raila) who apparently was heading the opposite direction. Even uniformed officers (APs, NYS,KP, KA ,etc) were not interested to escort their VIP bosses but were more keen to hear/see on Raila Odinga. Aibu Kubwa sana hii I must say.
The official function was over, and the workers were demanding to be addressed by Raila after listening to monotonous speeches from COTU's Francis Atwoli and President Kibaki - not to mention Dr. Kulundu's massive cock-up in not knowing, in the official program, that some trade union veterans were to be awarded worthless presidential "burning spear" medalions. Perhaps the workers felt Raila's speech could contain facts rather than the half baked official speeches that had been sugar-coated with the aim of mobilising votes in this election year?
You need to analyse the implication of such things against a self proclaimed government of national unity and opinion polls that purport to openly favour certain individuals while events on the ground show otherwise.
@ annonymous
ReplyDeleteHi "still Kikuyu woman and proud of it". To tell you the truth, I have always felt strangely drawn to you even when you were leaving all those inflamatory comments here. I knew that deep inside you were a very nice person. Now I've been proved right.
I have a feeling that whatever you may feel for this blog has been influenced by others and what they have told you about us. I wish I could get an opportunity to chat with you via email. If your answer is "yes" please write to me at umissedthis at yahoo dot com.
warmly,
Kumekucha