Atwoli yet again tries his hand at elusive Luhya political unity bid
What you need to know:
- He revealed having sought out and separately met the three Luhya political players who nurse presidential ambitions: Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang’ula, and Cyrus Jirongo.
- Atwoli says he has personally hired a team of Luhya university researchers to narrow down on the most suitable choice.
- Atwoli went on and on about how he had taken it upon himself – as a Luhya elder – to bring the community together politically.
The most hilarious interview I have watched in recent times was one featuring Cotu secretary-general Francis Atwoli on the Jeff Koinange TV show last week.
I was left wondering whether the man couldn’t have made a greater career as a comedian. One thing he certainly is is a consummate entertainer. A bit, one may add, like his TV host.
Let me not dwell too much on the many jokes Atwoli regaled the audience with, like the one about him, in his estimation, being the third most important person in the country after the President and the opposition leader. Or the one about the desirability of an accomplished man marrying three wives (he said he is shopping for his third).
His main thrust, however, was on the endless, circular storyline of the Luhya community’s political disunity.
He seeks to play the ambitious, self-appointed role of unifying the factions that make up the Luhya political mix. To this end he revealed having sought out and separately met the three Luhya political players who nurse presidential ambitions: Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang’ula, and Cyrus Jirongo.
He says he has gone further and personally hired a team of Luhya university researchers to narrow down on the most suitable choice.
There was no word on the individual qualities which would be canvassed and how they would be assessed, which left me imagining an abstract, academic process of the kind the choice of Chief Justice was recently arrived at. Luhya politics never ceases to amaze.
There were plenty of contradictions in Atwoli’s account. First, he insisted the Luhya are not disunited.
In the same breath he went on and on about how he had taken it upon himself – as a Luhya elder – to bring the community together politically.
But the biggest contradiction of all is how Atwoli and the Luhya bandwagon keep telling everybody how the political promiscuity of their community is a statement of its “democratic” nature, yet at the same time they spend all their energies on the quest for that elusive political unity.
The trade unionist was fuzzy on how he planned to achieve his goal. On one hand he says he will ensure the Luhya vote goes into one basket. On the other he does not say under which political party.
One disconcerting aspect of Luhya disunity is that the community’s homeland has arguably more active political parties than most other regions. Wetang’ula has his Ford-Kenya. Mudavadi has his Amani party. Jirongo peddles another one whose name eludes me. And Ababu Namwamba on Thursday re-launched yet another one – the Labour Party of Kenya.
BOARDROOM DEALS
Atwoli’s is certainly not the only attempt at Luhya unity. I hear Senator Amos Wako of Busia is working on another unity “contract.”
Luhya leaders long introduced into this country the peculiarity where a community presidential candidate is shopped for in boardroom deals or in hotels, rather than through individual achievement.
Maybe this why this unity pursuit always comes a cropper. Worse, they make no bones that what they want is a candidate who, first and foremost, will uphold the Luhya banner. These loud proclamations pose problems, not least of perceptions outside Luhyaland.
I personally believe Atwoli when he says he is not interested in a political office like that of MP, governor or even president.
I think all he wants is to play and be seen to play the role of a big Luhya chief. I have my doubts if his interlocutors are taking him as seriously as he is taking himself. Certainly Wetang’ula doesn’t seem to.
More so, one suspects, because the Ford-Kenya leader might be fearing that Atwoli has a different and predetermined Luhya candidate as his preferred community standard bearer.
Atwoli says that after the contracted university researchers have made their pick, he will call a huge baraza in Luhyaland to have the candidate endorsed.
I hope he won’t leave it at that but will start selling the choice to the rest of the country.
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Surely, did the Judicial Service Commission have to go all the way to The Hague to deliberate on their choice of Chief Justice? For heaven’s sake, let us all be mindful about the prudent use of the country’s money.
