Political Eulogy of Wycliff Musalia Mudavadi

I am republishing this piece as it was inititially published in the Star on September 29, 2012. I recall the piece generated a lot of hate mail and record insults and smears in social media targeting yours truly for speaking the truth but the irony is many of those haters have since disappeared from social media and others even had the audacity to long after that seek me out to be friends on Facebook or to connect on LinkedIn neither of which I allowed despite their pretending to have reformed and no longer the haters I know they will always be.

Anyway, I am sharing this as I yest again closely follow and watch Mudavadi’s moves and will not hesitate to make another call about his political demise, if he yet again tries to go against the wind instead of doing the only thing that makes sense and that is to stand behind Baba who has time and again revived his political life.

And now the original piece as published in 2012 and verbatim:

Unlike a cat with its proverbial nine lives, a politician only has at most two political lives, meaning if he or she goofs once, there is a chance the public may give him or her another chance but rarely a third one.

On the other hand, one generally gets at most three chances to permanently correct their course or as the Americans say in baseball terms, it’s three strikes and you’re out.

Going by either of these premises, Mudavadi’s political career is over even before the fat lady sings.

This didn’t have to be this way.

Mudavadi was lucky to be born to a family whose head was a close ally and friend of ex-president Daniel Arap Moi.

Because of this relationship, Mudavadi easily made it to Parliament succeeding his late father and was appointed as one of our country’s youngest serving minister.

In all the years Mudavadi served as minister, he is only remembered in connection with the Nairobi graves scandal in which he was implicated in a corrupt deal in which the Nairobi City Council paid a whopping 300 million shillings for land worth only 24 million shillings.

No service with distinction or accomplishment as a politician worth noting during the entire time Mudavadi served as minister.

This was strike No. 1 and part of Mudavadi’s first political life.

Mudavadi also has the dubious record of having served the shortest as our country’s Vice President.

Needless to say, Mudavadi neither accomplished nor did anything to be remembered for as our Vice-President other than being part of a hapless 2002 project by Moi in which he tried to shove down our throats a Uhuru presidency nobody but Moi and the few gullible and ill-advised wanted.

This was strike No.2 and the end of Mudavadi’s first political life.

The resounding defeat of the Uhuru project was so sweetly definitive and devastating, Mudavadi was sent packing even as an MP as he also lost his seat as MP for Sabatia.

Having been so devastatingly defeated and basically finished politically, Raila reached down to the politically wounded Mudavadi and nursed him back to life, leading to his once again being elected as Sabatia MP and thanks again to Raila, his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister.

You would think Mudavadi would be grateful and do whatever he can to help the very man who saved him from total political ruin be reelected but this time sworn as president while awaiting his turn; you’ll be wrong as Mudavadi had better ideas which, in fact, are terrible ideas that will permanently seal his fate as a failed politician.

There is no question in anyone’s mind that Mudavadi is now a project of his own schemed right out of State House.

As in the Uhuru project Mudavadi was a part of in 2002, this, too, shall come to pass as a failed project because the underlying fundamentals are the same most important of which is the fact Kenyans simply detest the idea of leaders or people they don’t want being rammed down their throats as their leaders wapende wasipende.

This is precisely why even parties cannot have direct nominations anymore or anything other than an open and transparent nomination process.

Mudavadi’s defecting from ODM and allowing himself to be a project is the third strike and end to his revived political life it’s doubtful he’ll ever have another chance in life to be what he could have been politically but for his failure to make the right decisions hitherto.

Put another way, Mudavadi has hammered the last nail to his own political coffin and thus the appropriateness of this eulogy of his political life.

First, by refusing to learn from his past mistakes, namely, his going against the prevailing strong winds against a failed project in 2002, and agreeing to yet again be used as an empty suit in an all but certain to fail project, Mudavadi has amply demonstrated he is not his own man.

Second, not being his own man is precisely the reason why those propping Mudavadi up as a project believe he is the best choice for this project because they can control and manipulate him at will in the unlikely event they’re successful with the project.

Third, the fact that Mudavadi is not his own man and is being targeted to be a project because he can easily be manipulated and controlled as president by those propping him up is reason numero uno he will and shall be rejected by Kenyans who are now even more wiser than we were in 2002.

Indeed, it cannot but strike many as odd even strange those propping Mudavadi up as their project cannot see that the very reason Mudavadi is attractive to them, namely, being a weak and indecisive politician is the very reason he has failed to convince many even in his own backyard that he’s worth taking seriously as presidential material.

No one can be happier in this failed project than Raila and ODM.

Samuel Omwenga is a lawyer and political commentator in the US

 

Tribute to a Great Legal Mind and Kenyan Patriot Former Attorney General Sir Charles Njonjo

On June 4, 2013, I received an email from a senior editor at the Star which informed me that someone from former AG Charles Njonjo’s personal office, called The Star to ask for my email. The editor suggested this had to do with a column I wrote that week about how the Supreme Court had rendered the worst decision in the court’s history, comparing the decision to an infamous one made by the United States Supreme Court known as Dred Scott v Sandford.

In that case, the US Supreme Court infamously held that black American slaves were property to their owners and had no constitutional rights. I made the case in my column that the then Chief Justice Mutunga led court was equally morally and legally wrong in dismissing the petitions of Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga and AfriCog.

Whatever the reason was, I was more than amused that the man many affectionately refer to as Sir Charles Njonjo or the “Duke of Kebeteshire” wanted to get in touch. I did not receive an email from his office, but the editor informed me a few days later and told me there was a new plan.

According to the editor, it had been agreed that a lunch meeting be set-up for me to have lunch with the Star publisher, the editor and Sir Charles. This was at the request of Mr. Njonjo himself who assumed I was based in Nairobi but was told I live in the U.S.

However, Njonjo was told I do come home regularly to which he said that the lunch meeting be arranged for the next time I came back, which happened to be two months later in August 2013.

The publisher, the senior editor and I had the much-anticipated lunch with Njonjo at Nairobi Club. To say it was the highlight of my life to meet and chat with this historic figure would be an understatement.

The man was every bit the brilliant and funny man I and others have always known him to be. As I would tell him later, I was awed by his brilliance and aura during an impassioned speech he gave in Parliament in 1983 denying the allegations of treason that were being bandied around.

It was my first and last time I watched live proceedings in Parliament from the public gallery, but the experience had a lasting impression as it cemented my passion for politics and quest for justice.

During this amazing lunch, Njonjo gave me his phone number and asked me to keep in touch. I did just that and on my next trip to Kenya, I met him at his office in Westlands next to Sankara where I used to stay without knowing that Njonjo was one of owners. I came to know that long after I met the man, not that it would have made any difference.

In my second meeting with Njonjo, I raised the prospect of penning his memoir to which he immediately had a broad smile, paused as though to reflect on what to say and simply said this is something many have asked him, but he had no desire to ever have his memoirs published.

However, he did not completely close the door; rather, he kept it open, and we would occasionally revisit the issue whenever I called him from the US and every time I visited him at his office over the years.

On my last visit with this statesman, he was categorical in saying no, he would not have me pen his memoirs, and neither would anyone else.

That is who the man was at the core: very private and never believed in “spilling beans” so to speak. I know from the tidbits he shared with me, some of which are comical but what the man knew was tantalizing and would have made a best-seller besides being informative. I and others tried but that will now never be known he being the last person alive from Kenyatta’s cabinet—and Oh, what he knew!

Njonjo was a great man and very much one of the founders of our country which he helped shape our country’s politics of the day and his contribution will be forever emblezoned in our country’s history.

I am honored to have met and interacted with him.

May he Rest in Peace.