Wetang’ula should join national unity movement, or risk oblivion

Moses Masika Wetang’ula is coming out as a man who keeps his word. At least when it comes to promises of messing up quietude, even if unnecessarily, the man of the mundu khu mundu fame is proving to be one whose word can be taken to the bank.

When in March the Bungoma senator got wind of his impending ouster as Leader of Minority in the Senate, Mr Wetang’ula made a vow that the then apparent divorce, and final dissolution of the National Super Alliance, of which he was one of the four not-so-equal principals, would be “messy, it would be noisy, it would be unhelpful, it would not be easy, it would have casualties.”

The messiness, unhelpfulness and uneasiness of the promise are yet to manifest. They may or may never come to pass given the fact that the Ford Kenya leader seems not to have the power to implement their realisation. But he has indeed delivered on the noisy and casualties fronts.

ALTERNATIVE IDEAS

Mr Wetang’ula is the one big conspicuous casualty of the break-up as his other three parties to the marriage seem to have moved on and found themselves in more fulfilling unions.

Musalia Mudavadi, the Amani National Convention (ANC) party supremo is comfortably defining himself as the defacto leader of the Opposition outside Parliament. He occasionally convenes press conferences to critique and criticise policies and actions initiated by the government and, more often than not, offers alternative ideas. A case in point is the ongoing, seemingly renewed, President Uhuru Kenyatta-led purge against merchants of corruption.

Mr Mudavadi has gone on record acknowledging the effort of the Head of State to drive thieves of public wealth and money out of town, challenging Mr Kenyatta to go for the big fish as well even as he fries the small ones. Although the former Minister of Finance did not disclose the identities of the “big fish”, whom he seemed to know well, the fact that he endorsed the popular war against graft is testament enough that he means well for the country and can indeed be trusted to provide alternative leadership. The originator of the Nasa idea also exhibits signs of a man who has moved on and one who does not hold grudges despite his “baby” having died.

NATIONAL IRRITATION

Then there is Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.

Going by the events of the past couple of months, since the March 9 handshake, the ever-so-diplomatic former vice-president has progressively, albeit slowly, shown that he has accepted that the 2017 elections came and went and that there is a government in place which needs support to move the country forward. His attendance at the National Prayer ceremony last week is evidence enough that he is a good reader of the times

The fourth party in the Nasa marriage and its subsequent divorce does not require introduction. Former prime minister and the coalition’s presidential candidate Raila Odinga was the first to move on when he initiated the March 9 handshake. And he is the man Wetang’ula eternally blames for the divorce!

The credibility of the divorce accusations is neither here nor there, but the Bungoma senator needs to get over the grief and work for his county, his country and his pay. His tantrums are becoming a national irritation.

SELF-DECLARED

The man has made Raila Odinga his fulltime job and this does not help the residents of Bungoma in any way. He seems to have decided that the noisy part of his promise will be finding fault in the Orange Democratic Movement party leader, real or imagined, and shouting about it. It is national tragedy that an able senator’s entire time and resources are invested in shouting about another man who is not a threat to the nation’s good.

Like Napoleone Bonaparte said, you must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. “Weta” is spending too much time fighting “Tinga”, yet, ironical, “Tinga” seems not to be fighting back. And the noise is affecting the wrong people.

The other excuse Wetang’ula appears to be leaning on for relevance is also unwarranted. “Weta” has been struggling to reach out to his more focused counterpart Mudavadi for a deal on the tried tested and tired Luhya unity. Now unity is good, even noble. But unity needs to be purposeful. The only unity needed right now is national unity, which his self-declared nemesis Raila Odinga is rightly pursuing with the handshake, and not ethnic unity.

Mr Mugwang’a is a communications consultant based in Nairobi. [email protected]; Twitter: @Mikeysoul