At the weekend, I buried my fellow entertainer William Ingosi Moshi in Kamulembe village, Vihiga county. He has been singing as long as I have lived — some 50 years.
He is the lyricist who popularised the Luhya “Mwana wa Mbeli” (firstborn), a rollicking celebration of life. And he was more of a literary colleague. I often bumped into him at the University of Nairobi trailing the late Professor Francis Imbuga, the late Dr Arthur Kemoli and Professor Chris Wanjala. Ingosi had that sly squeeze of the palm, perhaps out of a habit of playing Litungu and Shiriri instruments.
His native name interpolated with the meaning of the song, “the hide that smokes in recognition of the firstborn”. Kamulembe is loosely “thing of peace”. The alliteration of his names, village and song make an oddity for a community he so defensively implored to be the first born in the country. “Mwana wa mbeli” is an invocation of pride, a challenge to be assertive and bold.
But in this village, we might as well have buried the lyricist with his song: It occurred to me the Mulembe Nation is at risk of being annihilated politically. The utterances of the usual dubious politician and barely literate rural functionary were the signal. Instead of gyrating symbolically to the lyric and offering the public political direction, the Luhya politician recoils at the idea of leading. You often encounter such cowardice among the breed of the Jubilee administration lodgers. But it was all opposition at Kamulembe.
And all they did was the fiction of passing the buck. An officious fellow from the newly created devolution elite is duly prompted to ask “all leaders gathered” to offer the community direction. The rascally young MCA invokes a fake curse if “those seated here” don’t declare unity immediately. The craftiest are the MPs, senators and governors. They engage in double-speak and throw the gauntlet to “hata wetu yuko hapa” mythical leaders.
The deftest lot are the so-called “unity brigade” who eulogise the political demise of their colleagues rather than the dead. You won’t be in the wrong company when they talk in half-baked parables of how “one of our own” will ascend to the presidency. It never occurs to them that it’s their responsibility to lead.
But time is against this fence-sitting. In management terms, the elections are not a year away but six months. The Luhya politician must denounce being a bystander, begging to be involved. Instead he must demand to be heard.
When athletes go to the Olympics, they don’t go there to practice but to win medals.
Luhya leadership is embarrassingly still rehearsing while the rest of the country is set and ready to go.
Kenyan politics is ethnic. Political parties or ideologies don’t run Kenya. Communities do by forming unions under the guise of parties. And they are not embarrassed about it. The Luhya must abandon shying from coalescing around one leader. Only then can their Mwana wa Mbeli slogan be heard.
The Mwana wa Mbeli clan has more advantages of winning the presidency in 2017 than any other. The community is the single largest rural and urban ethnic voting bloc after the Kikuyu. It has no major political grudge or debts to repay. It’s owed more. It’s peaceful and accommodating. All they need is rally behind the one with a national appeal and negotiate.
The writer is a communications, publications and conflict management specialist, University of Nairobi