About two months ago, a friend and someone I worked with our Azimio efforts in Mt. Kenya in 2022 who’s also in the diaspora contacted me wondering why I disappeared from Kenyan WhatsApp groups including several which I formed before and during the 2022 campaign.
I told her I did not participate in any of the groups anymore because I was upset and disillusioned from what happened in the 2022 Azimio campaign.
I squarely put much of what happened on the feet of Raila, a friend whom I have been among his most relentless supporters and effective defenders for over two decades.
The things I have done and sacrificed for Raila over the decades are stuff for my memoirs which is a work in progress. Top on that list is suspension of my law license which was directly the result of my practically abandoning my practice in early 2008 to lobby for Raila and ODM in Washington for 3 months straight to try and stop the country from going into a civil war.
Some of the progressives involved in the heavy lobbying we mounted in Washington that time included my late friend Hon. Joe Nyagah and several Kenyan Americans, including Dr. Siyad Abdullahi, Grace Ajode Jibril and several other concerned Kenyans and friends of Kenya.
The highlight of my efforts as I have previously written was a letter, I wrote to then-President George W Bush which was hand-delivered to him by his Vice President Dick Cheney who received the letter from Senator Lieberman who in turn received the letter from a friend of mine and the Senator’s doctor.
My doctor friend encouraged me to write the letter with the assurance he would make sure it was hand-delivered to the president and it was.
My friend later told me the president read the letter and soon after that, the U.S. shifted its position, bringing on Dr. Kofi Anan and the rest is history.
A copy of this letter is in my blog Current Affairs in Kenya where analytics says I have written more than 1 million words since 2011 which I intend to convert to one or more books besides my memoirs.
My participation and contribution in the resolution of the PEV crisis stand atop the highest political accomplishments I have thus far had in life and regret none of what I did to bring peace to Kenya following PEV 2003 and this is true notwithstanding the professional sacrifice I suffered as a result of it.
Thank God my efforts and those of others paid off as we managed to bring peace to Kenya and avoid a civil war with the negotiated coalition government of Kibaki and Raila.
So, back to my contact with my friend who wondered what I have been up to politically, I told her after all these sacrifices for Raila in the expectation he would be president—not so much to appoint me to anything—but for I truly believed Raila would be the kind of president we need to transform the country each time he vied.
Needless to say, all these efforts have been in vain.
I therefore decided to take leave from any political activities other than writing my weekly Star column, which, even that took some serious reflection to continue penning it.
In 2007 everyone expected me to be appointed to the cabinet or take on a top position in the State House, given my ferocious promotion and defending of Raila in Kenya forums but the truth is I was not interested as I had a young family I could not uproot from the U.S. and living away from them was not an option.
I just wanted my friend to be elected and sworn in as president but continue advising him from a distance as he went about transforming the country.
And even more importantly, to be able to bring investors I work with whose requirement is to only bother if they have someone very close to the president to protect their interests.
Of course, that would not come to pass, namely, Raila being sworn in as president.
In 2013, the same thing—ferocious defending and supporting Raila and spending an excessive amount of time and money doing so but no desire for an appointment at home were Raila to become president because, again, all I wanted was to help him get elected to transform the country and the opportunity for me to bring investors I work with to invest in the country.
Again, this would not come to pass for the same obvious reasons, even though I am on record having said neither Uhuru nor Raila won the elections, and had the country gone to Round II as the Constitution mandated, Uhuru would have cleanly defeated Raila for reasons I need not get into here.
Interestingly, even though I was not interested in appointment in a would be Raila government in 2013 either, then CS for ICT and old friend Dr. Matiang’i reached out to me while I was traveling in Thailand in late 2013 and asked if I could return to Washington to work with him on something urgent he was headed there to do.
Without going into details which will be in my memoirs, I dropped what I was doing in Thailand and headed back to Washington, met with Matiang’i and Ambassador Amina Mohamed who had been sent on this urgent mission by President Uhuru Kenyatta to plan and execute this mission.
Matiang’i told me because of what I was able to deliver for the president in such a short notice and given my connections in Washington and the investors I work with, I was ideal to be appointed as counsel general in L.A. to which I said, which Matiang’i advised will be done upon their return to Nairobi.
That, of course, never happened–again, more on this in my memoirs.
Not sure why these adjectives come to mind right now–narcissistic and selfish pathetic moron.
Anyway, in 2017 the same thing, i.e., continued supporting and defending Raila but had no desire for an appointment—only a desire to have him elected again but this time sworn.
However, having sacrificed as much as I had previously, I decided not to go home for the campaign as I did in each of the previous two campaigns (2007 & 2013) but was deeply involved nonetheless doing what I had to do remotely from the U.S.
Again, Raila being sworn in as president did not come to pass for even more obvious reasons.
In 2022, I spent even more time and money both here in the U.S. and at home during the 3 months I spent there campaigning for Raila and Azimio believing this time for sure, Raila’s got to win again but this time be finally sworn.
Lakini wapi!
All that time, money, and effort all went down the drain and even more devastatingly than all previous times combined. Even in hindsight, I cannot believe I spent as much money as I did convinced this time it was all worth it, not to say anything about my business which suffered tremendously for all that time I was out of the U.S. campaigning.
I am a professional law and politics writer–one of the hats I wear professionally and naively believed I could keep up with my writing, while at home campaigning but this proved to be impossible as I barely had time to do the writing.
While I could do some of my international investment consulting work while away, it was just not the same thing. In fact, many projects I was working on simply fell through because of lack of time to work on them as I was holed in Mt. Kenya and occasionally on the campaign trail in other parts of the country.
In sum, I once again sacrificed a lot for nothing.
I recall having a talk with one of Raila’s top lieutenants from coast and friend who knew how much I was spending in Mt. Kenya for the campaign and shared my pain because, he, too was spending a boatload of his money for the campaign.
This conversation happened as we were awaiting action at the Supreme Court. My friend asked me what my plans were, I told him regardless of the outcome at the Supreme Court, I was headed back to the U.S. the following week.
Earlier on during the campaign, I met with this same friend in Nairobi and also knowing my connections in Washington and in the investor world, my friend asked me if I had discussed with Raila to be appointed in a diplomatic post which he said I was uniquely suited for.
I told him no, but that is something we can discuss after the elections.
“No, do it now!” my friend advised and even offered to bring up the matter with Raila himself.
That was that and the rest is history but on this last meeting with my friend before I left Kenya, my friend tells me, “I hope your wife lets you into the house!” my friend said laughing.
It was funny, but also right on.
No wife would be happy seeing her husband pouring money into a drain to elect a president for not for the first time, not for the second time, not for the third time but for the fourth time. Not one.
So, when I came back to the U.S. after yet another disputed election, I finally agreed with my wife and said enough is enough with spending my own money and endless time supporting and defending Raila not because I no longer believe in him as a leader and what he is capable of doing, but because I know he would be president today had he listened to me and did what I urged him and Martha Karua to do.
Having spent all my time in Mt. Kenya during my 3 months campaigning for Raila and Azimio, I had intelligence from my sources and not only raised alarms about what I was learning not just for Mt. Kenya, but elsewhere.
I raised these alarms directly with Raila and Hon. Martha Karua who I must say recognized the seriousness and agreed with me something had to be done.
That wasn’t done and I know Raila is not president because of that.
Worse, not only was my sounding alarm ignored, but Raila was listening to people who were measuring the curtains for their dreamed-posh offices taking his being elected and sworn as a foregone conclusion because Uhuru and therefore the “system” was supporting him.
I and others I know raised several alarms this was not the case and that Raila and Azimio needed to do more but our pleas fell on deaf ears.
I recall one time while at Martha Karua’s home, she called a top Raila and Azimio advisor and asked him to call me as I was trying to reach him to no avail.
The man would neither take nor respond to my calls or messages.
HMK did not tell him I was with her, but she told me after ending the call he had asked him and he said he would call me, but he never did!
I had already told HMK what needed to be done and she understood the urgency but nobody else did, including this person who was supposedly one of Raila and Azimio’s top advisers making operational decisions for the campaign.
There are several characters around Raila I cannot mention by name for now—but I will in my memoirs which is a work in progress—who largely contributed to Raila not being elected as president in 2022.
One of these characters, and less so a second one did everything they could to frustrate and undermine my efforts as Chair of the US Azimio Committee.
Despite their moronic antics, I led this committee and the DC Chapter Committee to organize and execute the successful hosting of Raila in Washington in April 2022 as a sendoff to State House.
The nonsense and stupidity from other characters I endured heading that committee is something of a book by itself but just another reminder how uncouth some of our fellow brothers and sisters can be but despite all of that, even those characters admitted I managed to lead this committee to planning an event as good as any could be under those circumstances.
Three months later, I went home for the campaigns where I spent nearly all my time and efforts in Mt. Kenya, organizing and leading a campaign team there that we did our best with the meager resources we had in both my own money and some contributions from Azimio supporters.
I had earlier identified Mt. Kenya as crucial in having Raila elected but this time sworn.
In the last 3 weeks of the campaign, I got credible intelligence from my own sources that Raila was in trouble not just in Mt. Kenya, but even in his strongholds including Nyanza!
To counter this, we needed, and I told both Raila and HMK that we must urgently implement a more aggressive social media and digital campaign strategy.
I already had on standby a firm in the U.S. that specializes on this kind of work, but my pleas went nowhere and even talking to Elizabeth Amayo at the campaign Secretariat moved the needle not an inch.
She could only tell me she’d discuss the matter with someone above her and get back to me.
She never did.
She never told me who that was above her but I doubt it was Raila. It doesn’t matter; if Raila could have an inept person like that making—or not making decisions in this case, then he certainly would deserve the consequences.
It also doesn’t and wouldn’t matter if ineptness and incompetence were the byproduct of the false confidence of everyone, but Ruto and his team had that Raila was a sure-in.
Indeed, it was about the same time that I realized this was the belief of nearly everyone I was talking to who was deep in the Azimio campaign.
Everyone other than Ruto and his people assumed Raila had already won but the reality on the ground, especially where it mattered was nothing even close.
Be that as it were, even though Amayo never told me who the person above her was she needed approval, and even though I doubted it was Raila—who I already briefed on this, I would long after this come to find out no, she was not talking about Raila being the person about her to approve what I was asking but someone else who was controlling things rendering Amyo and the rest of the Secretariat useless.
The poorly structured and run campaign is the reason why Raila is not president today.
Knowing all this and more, I watched the Supreme Court hearing on Raila’s petition from my hotel room in Nairobi. I knew before the session ended that just as in 2013, Raila’s petition would be dismissed except this time with justifiable reasons.
One of the justices is a good friend with whom I was in communication even on the day of the hearing but of course not about the case. I didn’t have to because I knew going into the hearing things were not as Raila & Co. thought or assumed they were.
It was a rude awakening of some kind but some of us were long awake to the eventuality.
One hour after the Supreme Court dismissed the petition, I published my weekly Star column Time to Unite the Country. I received a lot of grief and nasty comments from friends in Azimio for penning this piece but I shall always call them as I see them regardless of how that which I say is received, liked or hated. It’s the right thing to do if we are to elevate our politics to where it should be.
For all this time Ruto has been president, I have maintained the same tone and message because I have wanted him to succeed for the same reasons, I stated in that initial column about uniting the country.
However, Ruto has taken a path I everyone I know, speak or listen to did not expect, and even many of Ruto’s ardent supporters I talk to are shaking their heads in disbelief as to why.
The level of incompetence and tone-deafness Ruto and those advising him are demonstrating is unparalleled, especially given how brilliantly though connivingly he and his team run the campaign.
This is to say nothing about the tribalism and corruption that’s already rampant and has all the telltale signs of Daniel Moi 2.0 I wrote about long before the elections warning what a Ruto presidency would be like were he to be elected.
On being sworn in as our president and taking the position we only have one president at a time, and genuinely giving Ruto the benefit of the doubt, I penned that first column 2 hours after the Supreme Court affirmed his presidency in many others for more than a year still hoping and believing the man would change course and do what is right.
He has utterly failed to do so.
After my friend called me and urged me to join Jubilee, and in light of the foregoing, I seriously considered the invitation and weighed the pros and cons.
In Part II of this blog, I will discuss my decision and the reasons why.
Current Affairs in Kenya 