Why Won’t Miguna Miguna Go Quietly?

Former advisor to PM Raila Odinga Mr Miguna Miguna has refused to leave office quietly and instead is going out kicking and screaming and causing lots of trouble. And most of his “kicks” seem to be aimed directly at his former boss.

So much so that some observers believe that his suspension may have already turned into a permanent sacking. Either that or the man may have read the writing on the wall and realized that he was unlikely to be re-instated and has therefore opted for the Samson option.

Still those who know Miguna well disagree and say that his reaction was predictable and that a better and wiser manager would have anticipated it and taken the necessary precautions to prevent this fall out that cannot be good for a man seeking the presidency in 2012.

The most famous Miguna photo.

The clearest signal thus far that the man’s “kicks” had hit the PM emerged last weekend when a section of ODM MPs on Sunday warned Miguna against “using abusive language” against the PM. The MPs said that Luo Nyanza legislators would meet soon to discuss this unbecoming conduct. See story HERE.

Miguna’s most telling “kick” must have been a long emotional tirade where he accused his former boss of “failing to apologize after dismissing him in a most inhumane way.”

“Unfortunately, he has failed or refused to do so after one whole week. This is neither honourable nor humane. A man who cannot apologise and correct his mistakes has no business pretending to be the symbol of positive change for this country,” Miguna said in a statement.

The former advisor to the PS says that he has sacrificed his professional career, life and even family for Raila Odinga and he was therefore shocked and hurt by the manner his case was handled.

This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that would cause rival PNU strategists and insiders to break into song and dance while doing a jig or two at the same time. Indeed had the support to the PM been of a less emotional nature one could have predicted that Miguna will turn into a chief campaigner for PNU in the run up to 2012. Those who understand Kenyan politics know that just the thought of such a thing is laughable, hilariously so. Besides Miguna may have burnt all his bridges with his youth-winger-take-no-prisoner-politicking when he was working for the PM. His behaviour earned him such hatred in the PNU camp that no serious negotiations would have taken place between his party and PNU in his presence.

Interestingly in his first reaction to his sacking Miguna blamed the ugly head of impunity and vowed to fight against it to the end. It is now clear that the Canadian qualified lawyer has classified his former boss in that camp of practitioners of impunity.

But Miguna has done more than just issue statements with barbs targeted at Raila. He has gone ahead and filed a case against his dismissal.

He has sued Attorney-General Amos Wako and the permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Dr Mohammed Isahakia, demanding at least half of his Sh584,000 a month salary plus allowances and reinstatement of his family medical cover as a first step. He also wants the High Court to lift the suspension.

He is asking the court to compel Dr Isahakia to reinstate his salary, allowances and benefits, which were stopped when he was sent home on August 4 over gross misconduct.

He also wants the court to restore an official driver, armed body guard and security at his house in Nairobi. Miguna says in his suit that he is entitled to not less than half of his salary, full allowances and benefits pending the outcome of the case against him.

He adds that he has been wrongfully locked out of his office and cannot access personal belongings. Not only that, his life has been exposed to risk due to the nature of his office.

In the suit filed at the High Court in Nairobi through lawyer Nelson Havi, Miguna argues that Dr Isahakia and Mr Wako have no power to suspend him because he was a presidential appointee. The decision to suspend him, he claims, was made arbitrarily and should be nullified.

Dr Isahakia did not give him a warning letter detailing the claims against him nor give him a chance to defend himself. He accuses the PS of leaking his suspension letter to the media more than 24 hours before it was delivered to him, instead of recalling him from leave and giving him the letter in a dignified and humane manner.

Every writer has to be careful about what they say concerning a matter that is before the courts but the truth is that Miguna’s demands in his suit are the kind that give the Luo community a bad name and the PNU camp will be busy right now repeating old worn out tales about how the Luo love perks and feeling important so much so that they will easily sacrifice everything else including remuneration for a big office, driver, bodyguard etc.

But even so, one cannot help but sympathize with the man. It seems that Moi dismissal methods have been put to good use in the political party that some Kenyans are looking up to, to bring us to a new era. I guess old habits die hard.

Read earlier Miguna Miguna analysis

Leader's Curse: Damned for Action and Inaction

There is no honour among hyenas, and who cares? The PM Raila had no power to suspend a minister because he is not the appointing authority and now he is taking all the flack for same. Well, masters of impunity must be feeling like fish tossed out of water. Their political epitaphs were scripted with golden letters of constitutional promulgation on August 27.

President Kibaki suspended Hon William Ruto from the cabinet and Raila is paying the heavy backlash bill. And the whole saga gets even more paradoxical for Kibaki who would have been vilified if he did not act and just he is being criticized for his action.

Next neck on the chopping block is Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula following the damning parliamentary report on Tokyo scam. The committee's indictment is so damning on Wetangula so much so that his hitherto securely locked closet has left his Kanu-era worms crawling from the shelves.

After unsuccessfully attempting the typical Kenyan political gimmick of drumming tribal support to cover your stinking back, Wetangula has his head squarely placed on the block. But don't count on any consistency in suspension yet. This is Kenya and political premium reigns supreme. Wetangula will either go Ruto way or Ongeri way depending on his weight on the succession and political balance.

With no regard to morals, Kenyans have the leaders they deserve. Look no further than the bigoted comments in support or condemnation of the fraudulent politicians. Even the Diaspora are playing ball with pedestrian analysis of which political alliance will win 2012 elections.

A nation living in denial is one immaculately paving her path to self destruction. Ruto and Wetangula do not have to wait to be suspended if they respect the laws they are paid to make. But this is Kenya where politicians shamelessly on camera secure in the knowledge that they have their tribe in the pocket.

The new constitution may be better compared to the previously tattered on but both never condoned fraud. Until we reboot out national mindset and accept the simple truth that morals cannot be legislated, Wetangula and company will continue ripping us off collectively as a country as we cheer and re-elect them as our top most diplomats.

It is no coincidence that both Ruto and Wetangula were our chief negotiators at Serena following the 2007/8 near Armageddon. We only condemn impunity from others and not when two junior embassy officials (Mburu and Muchiri) masterminds such a gigantic national fraud and get promoted for the same.

Woe unto a people living a beautiful national lie of pretense.

Draft: Divisive Church Aborting her Credibility

The Kenyan church is spoiling for a grandd fight. While the bible remains the ultimate constitution among Christians, it beggars belief what the so-called Kenyan church is upto with her opposition to the draft constitution. The church’s moral fibre is in tatters going by 2005 referendum and the bungled 2007 elections. You do not need a constitution to fight sin/s.

The Njue-Karanja axis of spiritual deceit is destined for a lose-lose Waterloo. Scuttling the review process will only lead to the mother of all PEV come 2012 (courtesy of the current constitution). No prizes for who will take the exclusive blame. Njoya has already warned them on loosing the residual credibility they begged Kenyans in forgiveness after near-Armageddon 2007 violence.

Both Njue and Karanja miss the boat by a whole river when they refuse to acknowledge the fact that it is the flock who makes the church and not the other way round. These two entrepreneurs better stop digging while seated at the bottom of the moral pit. The present religious brinkmanship leaves you asking where is justice when the church fails to protect the minority (Muslims) but instead seek the me-too cheap route to self righteousness.

Put differently what do you do when a person starts offering you advice to improve on something without being specific or giving you any specific ideas? They simply tell you that this is wrong and that “they don’t like it.” Do you ignore all the other readers you have and change the blog to suit the personal preferences of this single person and his minority supporters? Or do you just ignore them?

This is the situation that I have found myself in, in recent times and the similarities this personal situation has with the position of the churches in Kenya where the draft constitution is concerned are very similar.

Let me start with the personal drama. Those who have been with Kumekucha for a long time will know that I have an open mind and am very eager to listen to constructive criticism about the blog and especially ideas on improvement. However recently I have found myself in a very difficult situation from a person and indeed people whom I respect who have chosen to criticize for the sake of criticizing. I have taken time from a very busy schedule to answer the criticisms that have reached me via email and to the best of my ability I have explained my position and the vision that I had when I was launching Kumekucha 5 odd years ago.

Now a member of “this group” or somebody sympathetic with them left an anonymous comment a few hours ago in our latest advertising section informing me that the new advertising section will make Kumekucha lose readers and can even get the blog into trouble with our hosts blogger.com over violations of users terms of service. When I saw this comment and knowing what I do, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The facts are that our new advertising section has gained us new readers and has also proved to be very useful to many Kenyans out there, some of whom were trying to advertise in the comments section prior to our launching Kumekucha classifieds. It is free and therefore a service that I am sure will grow to be valuable with time. The blogger rules have nothing against bloggers selling advertising on their blogs (especially if the ads are not an excuse to link to other sites, and that’s why we DO NOT allow links). Indeed Kumekucha has been carrying advertising on a regular basis for a long time now from a blogger sister service called Adsense and one other unrelated affiliate advertising program. What blogger is against are links aimed at enhancing traffic and Google ranking of another site. They also discourage selling links to other sites and pretending that they are natural links. Another closely related no no is turning a blog into a spam blog.

If anybody doubts what I am saying they can read THIS from the blogger help forum.

What I would really like to know are the real motives driving the behaviour of this human being. People never do things for no reason.

Spiritual promiscuity
But having said that let me tell you a story that applies both to the church in Kenya and my good friend and his supporters.

Once upon a time in some African village there were two brothers. One brother did very well in his exams and ended up becoming a medical doctor. The other did terribly but was gifted in carpentry and so ended up being a village carpenter.

One day a snake entered their parents’ house during the Christmas holidays when both brothers were home with their families. The carpenter rushed and brought out a big Rungu (club) that he had crafted in his woodworking workshop. The doctor could hear nothing of it. He reminded everybody that he was the most educated person in that homestead and therefore the family had no alternative but to make use of his “excessive” brains. Without being specific, he suggested that they use a more scientific method to deal with the snake. While they were arguing they heard the doctor’s 2 year old baby screaming very loudly from one of the rooms in the house. They rushed in only to find that the snake had bitten the youngster. The good doctor knew that the snake was very poisonous and he had only about 10 minutes to do something or his only son would die. It would take hours to get to the nearest district hospital. And so he froze in panic and couldn’t move an inch.

The uneducated carpenter brother was more quick-thinking and used his club to kill the snake. He then tied the child with a cloth above the snake wound and rushed the baby to a nearby dispensary (on foot) where they had an antidote for the dangerous snake because it was fairly common in the area (information which the doctor did not have).

The moral of the story is that the common enemy almost defeated the two brothers and rather tragically too, all because one of them felt superior to the other.

Quite a number of church leaders have made their intentions known early that they will urge their flock to reject the draft constitution. The reason is that the constitution has failed to meet their expectations. Meaning that all the other groups (whose expectations were not met) should also reject the document.

In all this the church has failed once again to take a leadership position that is expected from it and at the very least suggest some compromise. They have not until this 11th hour when they have loudly started protesting even before the civic education program has been launched.

Now let us for a minute imagine a situation where all the demands of the church were met to the letter. It would mean that another group would be greatly disgruntled and so we would be back to square one with another group strongly against the document. In short we would never hope to get a new constitution in 100 years.

The church leaders should try and hear themselves talk because the first thing they would notice is that they sound very ridiculous. The current constitution which the vast majority agrees is terrible has Khadi courts and the much better draft constitution which will help the people of Kenya take back their country also has the Kadhi’s courts. So which one should Kenyans go for? The bad constitution with kadhi’s courts or the new constitution that gives Kenyans a fighting chance but also has Kadhi courts? You tell me.

To be very blunt I think the church has totally lost it. We saw the church take sides during the 2007 elections which led to serious blood shed in Kenya. One prominent church organization in Kenya openly supported PNU while most evangelical churches openly sang the praises of ODM. In retrospect the people who came out wisest were the Muslims. Wasn’t it funny the way both Raila and Kibaki kept on rushing to mosques? The Muslims accepted both with open arms but NEVER took sides. Actually they played both sides into thinking they were fully with them.

Me thinks that the church is making a big mistake. In trying to flex their political muscles I predict that they will be defeated and Kenyans will vote YES for the draft constitution. Have they thought of the kind of damage that will do to the church?

The wise thing to do is to let the people decide and remain silent if they have run out of ideas. In fact the church should be busy on the ground helping to heal the wounds they helped create in 2007. Not playing politics with a document that will be the first step towards a new Kenya. Besides the thing is not written in stone. Church leaders can move the changes they want later (which will be a lot easier than getting changes with the current constitution).

As it is the church leaders are sounding very much like the Pharisees during the days when Jesus walked the earth.

Well folks I have reported my position early I am going to vote YES for the new constitution. What about you?

Kumekucha classifieds: Looking for air-conditioning services while in Nairobi?