Riddle of vice presidents and the elusive throne

• The choice of V-P is often of strategic importance to the president.
• 65-year-old Joe Biden is meant to address and redress the displeasing issue of Obama’s inexperience.
• Because the Republican running mate is a woman, she could help McCain become President by attracting and winning over the estimated 13 million women who wanted Democrat Hillary Clinton to be President.

So African vice presidents have been keen to know more about the vice-presidential choices of US Democrat Barrack Obama and Republican John McCain? Good, I have got plenty for them.

“You die, we fly.”

That was the mantra of the team of George Bush senior when he was President Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Why the rather gloomy mantra? I will tell you that if it be a hymn, it is apt and right.

The mantra was coined by Bush senior’s team because the only time they had an opportunity to fly abroad was when some foreign dignitary died. Being too busy with domestic work, Reagan would dispatch his V-P to go and represent him at the funeral.

Now look at it this way; as the holder of the second most important political office in the land, you do not want to be known for representing your boss and country at funerals. But then, you cannot feign sickness when asked to, can you?

Second, staff of the second most important political office in the land do not want to be bored and, if you were V-P, you would not want them to be bored because they are not busy.

But then you serve at the pleasure of your boss and if he/she does not keep you busy, you and staff will be a bit idle.

Therefore, the idea of some dignitary dying outside your borders or shores and you having to fly to sit in or stand in for the boss would excite staff.

Third, often veep is deep in goop. Often you are not appointed Number Two because your strengths will serve the country well. You get the job because your strengths and especially weaknesses – real or perceived - will serve the president beautifully.

In other words, the choice of V-P is often of strategic importance to the president.

President Moi is on record as making it abundantly clear that his Vice-President of more than a decade, Prof George Saitoti, could not lead.

Prof Saitoti was Vice-President because, the former President explained, he was his friend, but he could not trust him with the leadership of the country because leadership is totally different and removed from friendship.

If Saitoti could not lead a cinema queue, surely Mr Moody Awori could lead the country, but as President Kibaki’s Number Two, Uncle Moody was often sent to fight the fires in the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) and clean up when some ministers messed up or carry the can when it came to Anglo Leasing-related security passports scam.

The usually invisible, inscrutable and AWOL (absent without official leave) President Kibaki did nothing to defend his veep when officials of Ford Kenya repeatedly and publicly declared that the V-P’s seat belonged to one of them and not to Awori.

Fourth, if you are V-P you cannot act in a manner likely to suggest that you are smart, let alone smarter than the boss. The accolades belong to the president not to the vice-president.