The ‘Stop Raila’ campaign is tribal fear-mongering
According to the newspapers, the G7’s policy is not to “block” hunger or block malaria or block ignorance or block hate speech. No, it is only to block Raila Odinga.
It reminds me of a solid block-Moi movement once, in which, as soon as it succeeded, sent members on the rampage against one another, each one settling for nothing less than State House.
For it seems inevitable that, if the G7 wins next year’s elections, Kenya will again sink into a clamour for the spoils more tragic than 2008’s. Any retarded child can predict it from Kenya’s political history ever since the Moi era.
Following the multiparty legislation of 1991, a pioneer “G7” called Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford) splintered into about a million “Fords” even before power was wrested.
The split did not stem from policy disagreements. It was the inevitable consequence of what Shakespeare called “vaulting ambition” by individuals.
Messrs George Anyona, Kenneth Matiba, Paul Muite, Masinde Muliro, Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Simeon Nyachae, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Charles Rubia, Martin Shikuku, Michael Wamalwa, Kimani Wanyoike — the whole kit and caboodle — individually told Kenyans that he was God’s chosen one.
Upon victory, a G7 called Narc was immediately at daggers-drawn, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga quite unable to live by a memorandum of understanding they had signed in the run-up to the 2002 polls.
One pole of that division would be called Party of National Unity (PNU) and the other Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
But, as soon the younger Odinga took the premiership in the post-election understanding brokered by Kofi Annan, a pre-election ODM “G7” called the “Pentagon” began to totter.
A latter-day Harry Hotspur called William Ruto — supported by majority MPs from his ethnic community — declared an all-out war on Mr Odinga, triggering an internecine war from which that party is not likely to emerge intact.
Back to the G7 fronted by Mr Kalonzo Musyoka (Kamba), Mr Uhuru Kenyatta (Kikuyu), that same Mr Ruto (Kalenjin) and others representing other tribes.
The four keep denying both that they are tribal and that personal ambition is what drives them — as representatives of very vote-powerful tribes — into a G7.
Yet every day the newspapers report that they have no social policy whatsoever — that “Stop Raila” is their only agenda.
Theirs is what a philosopher once called “the idea of nothing: the absence of idea”. If they have any positive agenda for Kenya, they have yet to promulgate it.
Is Mr Odinga guilty of something about which Messrs Musyoka, Kenyatta and Ruto are themselves immaculate?
I know only this: to unite to “block Raila” can be called a social programme only if the gentlemen know something terribly inimical that Mr Odinga seeks to perpetrate against Kenya when he is president.
But I suspect they know nothing about Mr Odinga of which they themselves are innocent. I suspect that theirs is just everyday tribalism.
Their ganging up against Mr Odinga is probably simply an attempt to exploit the fear of Luo leadership which hagrides many ethnic communities — a fear which, as we saw in Kisumu a few days ago — the Luo themselves are not making any effort to dispel.
Whichever way you look at it, to make the “Stop Raila” cry the essence of your elective politics is to express a remarkable moral and intellectual bankruptcy, a kind of chauvinism which should not escape Mzalendo Kibunjia’s attention.
Thinking Kenyans will not accept “anti-Railaism” as a genuine political ideology.
What Mr Musyoka (before the election) and Mr Ruto (after it) did to Mr Odinga is typical of all of Kenyan politicians — a mission to cheat Kenyans. You may impress them into voting one of you as president.
Yet you know very well that, as soon as that candidate is installed at State House, personal ambition — characterised by moral and intellectual vacuity — will powerfully drive you into pouring every kind of vitriol on him.
