CS Wamalwa’s headlong dive into Nairobi River will pay off

Firewood begets ashes. Chikhu chivulanga likokhe, so say the Bukusu. Barefaced lie. In any case, it does not apply to a man of searing ambitions like Water Cabinet Secretary Eugene Ludovic Wamalwa.

Mr Wamalwa is not one to be detained by small ambitions like seeking election to the National Assembly, or the Senate. No sooner had he realised that his friend Uhuru Kenyatta would be contesting the presidency in 2013 than he laid down his own leadership ambitions and offered to campaign for his New Ford-Kenya party.

It was such a strenuous political exercise, yielding a sizeable number of Members of Parliament that it would keep Mr Wamalwa on political bed rest until his appointment to the Cabinet in 2015.

Within a year of outperforming every member of the Cabinet by building pans, irrigation schemes and national water harvesting projects, Mr Wamalwa, who is like a rolling stone that gathers no moss, needs better. Cabinet is not what it used to be when he was in charge of the Justice and Constitutional Affairs docket in 2012.

The son of deceased Senator William Wamalwa, brother of Kenya’s seventh vice-president, Michael Kijana Wamalwa, and owner of all the country’s water wants fire. Under the steady guiding hand of Noah Wekesa, the magician of coalition-making, Mr Wamalwa has realised that the governor’s seat in Trans Nzoia is too puny for his comfort.

It is the kind, though easily winnable is a landslide to be left to the retiring likes of Mr Wekesa.

PROUD ANCESTRY

Mr Wamalwa’s proud ancestry among a people who tickle the sky and milk elephants is good enough to bring development to the place of cool waters, the capital of Kenya. Bungoma would have been attractive for a gubernatorial race because of Mr Wamalwa’s deep cultural roots in the county. But the county that is home to Kenya’s James Bond, the only man to ride under the belly of a helicopter; the forge of carcinogenic wheelbarrows; the home of cross-racial lovebirds Zarika and David, prides itself in saying the word ‘impossible’ does not exist in the vocabulary of Bungoma people. The people of khulia silulu (eating the bitters, or taking a terrible oath) can easily make him the governor of Nairobi through remote control voting.

A poorly kept secret is that thousands of voters who should be voting in Trans Nzoia, Mr Wamalwa’s birth county, and Bungoma, his ancestors’ home, have secretly migrated to Nairobi where they are itching to instal one of their own as lord and boss of the capital.

They are poised to power peacefully through the ballot, with the support of in-laws, friends and well-wishers from around the country.

There are people standing on the banks of the Nairobi River, urging Mr Wamalwa to strip down to his swimming trunks and take a dive. It is no time to disappoint.

The dip in Nairobi is the perfect launch pad for Mr Wamalwa’s promising political career, which has so far avoided a head-on collision with President Kenyatta. When Mr Wamalwa succeeds as governor, it will be a short hop to State House.

Within four years of Mr Wamalwa successfully running Nairobi, which he can do blindfolded, Deputy President William Ruto will have to abandon his hallucinations about running Kenya in 2022. Mr Ruto will be begging to be named Mr Wamalwa’s running mate in the 2022 elections.

At worst, Mr Ruto will have to offer Mr Wamalwa the deputy presidency on a silver platter, damn the optics of having the two neighbours running the country.

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