No Sir, this isn’t the alternative leadership that Kenyans expect

There is this song I have recommended for every Kenyan president since I came of age, from Daniel arap Moi on to Mwai Kibaki and the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta.

Though his quest for State House looks like it is becoming more elusive as the years roll by, I would still recommend that opposition leader Raila Odinga put the same song on his iPod playlist.

The relevant lines from Jah Guide, by reggae great Peter Tosh, are simple: “Jah Jah guide me from my friends / cause I know my enemies...”

This is what should have been on Mr Odinga’s mind last Thursday when a small bunch of his pea-brained ODM members of Parliament chose to disrupt President Uhuru Kenyatta’s State of the Nation address.

To date I have not figured out what the MPs were protesting against and what they hoped to achieve, but they indeed succeeded in making utter fools of themselves.

The infantile display, beamed live across the globe, exposed for all to see the vacuity in opposition leadership.

While the brain-dead MPs have nothing to lose by confirming what they are made of, it does not seem to alarm Mr Odinga that such displays ultimately reflect badly on his own standing and raise questions whether he is, indeed, ready for leadership.

With the Jubilee coalition team of President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto stumbling from one crisis to another, Mr Odinga should be primed to offer himself as alternative leadership.

Instead, he encourages mindless and unfocused protests that only betray the fact that the opposition is ill-suited to fill the gap.

Now the same MPs who caused the ruckus by blowing whistles in Parliament are seeking to transform that shameful act of infamy into a “Firimbi” movement to lead the next phase of the struggle against the Jubilee regime.

I have heard about building on success, but building on abject failure is a new concept altogether.

Yes, the MPs succeeded in attracting attention to themselves, but only for their disgraceful behaviour rather than anything good and noble.

STATESMANLIKE

The only success, and that was surely not intended, was in making President Kenya look presidential and statesmanlike.

His calm and mature demeanour through the heckling was in sharp contrast to the stark raving mad protestations of a few misguided members on the opposition benches.

No wonder the President could afford that mischievous grin and the jocular asides because he knew that the opposition was only damaging its own cause, if it ever had any.

There are so many worthwhile issues that Mr Odinga should be directing his ODM and wider Cord coalition towards if the aim is to persuade Kenyan voters that there is a viable government in waiting.

Corruption, unemployment, the economy, insecurity, tribalism, crime, nepotism, unequal development, and poverty offer just a small sampling of the myriad issues Cord pinpointed before launching the ill-fated Okoa Kenya referendum initiative.

After mismanaging the signature-collection campaign for the proposed referendum, Cord should have gone back to the drawing boards for some serious soul-searching, but instead Mr Odinga’s troops embarked on protests that have neither rhyme no reason.

An alternative leadership must offer more than nuisance value. If there are issues worth protest, they must be clearly thought through and articulated rather than come across as mindless, desperate manoeuvres from the rabble in Parliament.

Now, do not get me wrong. I am not a status-quo defender. There is room for protests, demonstrations, marches, and other forms of expression and pressure in the quest for a just society.

Where the laws serve only the rulers, there is even justification for mass action or violent resistance. That is why we had the war for independence and the struggle against the Kanu one-party dictatorship.

But protest must also have its time and place. It must be founded on solid principles with clear vision and goals for the benefit of wider society.

What we are seeing now from an opposition more rudderless than the government does not pass muster.

If he still wants to make it to State House, Mr Odinga must get rid of his current lot of sycophants, hangers-on, and free-loaders and put in place a team that will chart a focused new path.

[email protected]. Twitter: @MachariaGaitho