Baba Yao is a cautionary tale against voting through emotions
What you need to know:
Choices indeed have consequences. Kiambu residents now know the pain of living under a sleazy, mismanaged county government.
They now understand that knee-jerk voting leads to wrong political choices. It is a lesson other Kenyans should learn too.
As for Baba Yao, he can reinvent himself into something new. An evangelical preacher, perhaps?
Following Thursday’s hiccup caused by High Court Judge John Onyiego’s postponement of the swearing-in of James Nyoro as the new governor of Kiambu owing to some legal hitch, the ceremony proceeded smoothly the following day. The powers that be were in an obscene rush to have Nyoro enthroned following the impeachment of Ferdinand Waititu.
REAL BULLY
The impeachment was gazetted on Wednesday night shortly after the Senate voted, which was unusual because it was long after office hours. Nyoro’s swearing-in was swiftly scheduled for the next morning, but later pushed to Friday after Justice Onyiego raised his objections. The necessary Kenya Gazette and County Gazette notifications were promptly printed. It was a race against time due to the urgency to be a step ahead of Waititu’s anticipated countermove to get a court injunction.
At one point, I genuinely empathised with Baba Yao. The forlorn way he stood before the Senate. (“I am human … However bad I look, please give me justice”).
Outwardly, he hardly resembles a villain. The way he ambles along with his back slightly hunched, and with his rather shabby suits holding together a pot belly that is not quite fully formed, he comes across as a genial, harmless, ordinary Joe. Away from the political platform, where he is full of energy, he manages to sound soft-spoken when engaging in ordinary conversation. (In his true colours, however, he is a real bully).
THROWING STONES
Appearances can deceive. The venality and corruption of Baba Yao’s administration in Kiambu is something angry residents have had to live with since he became governor in 2017. I hold little sympathy for these voters. They should have read the warning signs from the very beginning. There were his dodgy college records from India, which once prompted his predecessor and rival, William Kabogo, to seek their exposure in court. Then the long list of previous infractions with the law from when he was Embakasi MP. An enduring image of the Baba Yao of the time was of him throwing stones à la Boni Khalwale during urban brawls. This is the ruffian voters from one of the best-endowed counties in the Republic elected to be their governor. The humiliation is not on Baba Yao. It is on them.
When putting his case before the Senate, Baba Yao described Kiambu as having “the worst propagandists” ever eager to pull people like him down. I smiled at the irony of that, remembering the venomous propaganda that his side dished to destroy Kabogo.
COLLECTIVE SHAME
True, Kabogo is not the most humble of leaders, yet the slurs that cost him the governorship, and which the voters unthinkingly bought into, are remembered these days by the same voters with a deep sense of collective shame. Without question, Baba Yao was the latest casualty — and a big one — of the Tangatanga-vs-Kieleweke wars, with the latter side powerfully boosted by Nasa’s parliamentary troops. Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen’s blatant ploy of constituting a committee stacked with Tangatanga senators to save Baba Yao was briskly dismantled by the Kieleweke/Nasa senators, who pushed for a full plenary vote.
Indeed, at a deeper political level, the Waititu case illustrated the sea of difference in the way Tangatanga and their opponents approach integrity issues. Any claim to ethical or moral sensibility by those voting to salvage Waititu despite the glaring corruption laid bare before the Senate was gravely undermined. Also exposed was the fundamental gulf in attitudes on matters corruption between Tangatanga and Kiambu residents fed up with Waititu but whom the faction has been very keen to capture. Baba Yao’s goose was ultimately cooked by two things: his lawyers and a widow.
SLEAZY GOVERNOR
Senators could not believe it when the advocates brought no evidence or witnesses. One of the lawyers even tactlessly questioned the legality of the Senate impeachment proceedings. But what prompted utter disgust among many senators was the revelation that the governor had dispossessed a widow of her two prime plots in Thika, which he transferred to one of his wives. Baba Yao has no class. In his desperation, he even disowned a wife and daughters entangled in his graft cases.
Predictably, Baba Yao was in court on Thursday seeking to have the swearing-in of Nyoro stopped and the Senate impeachment overturned. He failed in the first bid but was granted a hearing on the impeachment matter. The hearing will be tomorrow. (Baba Yao faces a separate criminal case being prosecuted by the DPP centring on manipulation of county tenders and which had seen him barred from accessing his office).
Choices indeed have consequences. Kiambu residents now know the pain of living under a sleazy, mismanaged county government. They now understand that knee-jerk voting leads to wrong political choices. It is a lesson other Kenyans should learn too. As for Baba Yao, he can reinvent himself into something new. An evangelical preacher, perhaps?
