With hindsight, complaints that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s two-hour State of the Nation address was self-praise missed the point.
The President needed the hours to be circumspect in endorsing his handshake partner Raila Odinga.
In invoking the word ‘stability’ so many times, Uhuru sent salutations he owed. It was courtesy to admit that the achievements of his regime were owed to the peace made with Raila.
It’s a given that in statecraft, you complement even the worst political raven while at the top as a part investment in goodwill just in case you find yourself on the other’s foot begging.
A statesman is like a rat: It doesn’t maul its prey but lulls it with bits of bites and air massages.
Recognising a favour never reduced the esteem of the power holder nor killed anyone. In this, Uhuru has done better with Raila than he has with his deputy, William Ruto.
This is why to whom more is given, more is expected. Raila owes debts big time. A
s he prepares for his jamboree on December 10, the speechwriters should whisper to him that half of his Azimio la Umoja speech be dedicated to recognising those to whom he owes his political career. Why?
One, Azimio la Umoja is an empty slogan, if he doesn’t make peace with his erstwhile discarded colleagues in Ford, Kanu, LDP, Narc, ODM, Cord and Nasa.
Whisper that ‘it doesn’t require that he reciprocates'. No. Just be lavish in indemnifying their sacrifices for you. No one expects sincerity in your accolades. But just pretend, like always, that you valued them. After all, you’re already undermining their bases using new recruits'.
Two, in three decades, Raila has hardly kept the same company of partners.
Some may argue that’s the brevity of not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
But the attrition rate has been phenomenal and performance not incremental. He’s now playing catchup trying parchments of new partners.
Whisper, ‘to do your dirty work and destabilise them in Luhya nation of ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and Ukambani of Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, you’ve already recruited all the governors into your stable. In your Azimio speech, just play the nibbling political rat that you’re. That’s all.’
Three, there is a likely runoff after the August 2022 presidential election given Raila is running minus his traditional support bases.
The kingpins in those areas plan a grudge match with him. But carrying the baggage of enmity will cost Raila heavily at the runoff, should he reach that stage'.
Four, and most important, he’s broken the cardinal rule in Luke 12:48 “To whom much is given, much will be required”.
It means if we’ve been blessed with support, it’s expected that you benefit others. Raila has received without reciprocity. That tag of deceit needs sanitising.
How he does that is quite a herculean climb, much more than slippery Mt Kenya.
From the archives, I can speak of one person that Raila immensely owes an apogee of mentions in his Azimio speech.
Save for the rude parting of ways in the 2013 elections, Musalia Mudavadi has anchored Raila’s run for presidency more than anyone else.
I don’t just mean pulling back to allow his “brother” to make a stub at the seat. There is much more in their relationship than many of their sycophantic proxies care admit.
There is confusion in just when did the political paths of the two met.
Could it be in the momentary rebellion against President Daniel Moi’s choice of Uhuru as the Kanu candidate in the lead up to the 2002 elections?
Mudavadi bulked and became running mate in Uhuru’s 2022 unsuccessful run.
Raila claimed Mudavadi had absconded an intention to be the candidate for the LDP. In fact, Raila justified the “Kibaki Tosha” moment on alleged Mudavadi's political truancy.
The ANC leader asserts there was no such guarantee and accuses Raila of creating a fall guy of him after his treacherous endorsement of Kibaki, thus undermining colleagues in LDP. On who’s right on this, history will be the judge.
Or maybe it’s in the heady days of the Goldenberg heist when there was ping pong blame flying all over. Mudavadi had just inherited the scum at Treasury as Finance minister after the 1992 elections.
Mastermind Kamlesh Pattni made spurious claims about whom he laundered the money to. Unusually, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, then Opposition leader, admitted receiving campaign cash from Pattni for the 1992 multiparty elections.
In Parliament in 1993, his Ford-Kenya party chaired the powerful Public Accounts Committee through Kijana Wamalwa as chair and was extraordinarily pushing Treasury to pay Pattni some claims related to Goldenberg.
Mudavadi would not budge. There will be no cent payable to Pattni on top of the trillions stolen. Conversely, he argued, Pattni owed the public, money.
The Justice Bosire Commission on Goldenberg not only vindicated Mudavadi but paid glowing tribute to him for stopping the bleeding at Treasury.
But that hasn’t stopped Raila sporadic exoneration or link of the ANC boss to Goldenberg, depending on whether they are on the same or opposite political side.
There isn’t mystery guessing what soundbite Raila will use against Mudavadi in the 2022 campaigns.
And that’s where caution is called for.
The refrain that Mudavadi was in Goldenberg is a dead beat, just like the recent Anglo-Leasing refreshments.
The ODM boss must thus refrain from treading where even angels fear. He must be mindful of a Mudavadi who found and literary “bought” ODM from little-known lawyer Mugambi Imanyara, on whose ticket Raila ran in 2007 after Kalonzo took off with the original ODM-K.
It doesn’t end there. After the sham 2007 ODM presidential nominations at “Kisirani” that coronated Raila, Mudavadi could have left in a huff.
But he stayed and funded the ODM campaigns. No one, including candidate Raila, put in as much money as Mudavadi did.
He repeated the same feat as Nasa chief campaigner in 2017, a coalition he created after Raila’s Cord lost gravitas. He stepped back and allowed Raila to vie on Nasa.
Like before, many had lied to Raila about funding the campaigns and when they failed, Mudavadi stepped in donating space, cash and his chopper to the candidate.
Flashback: Halfway into the Nusu Mkate government, the subversion of Mudavadi began again with intensity: Oh, Mudavadi should go to the governor of Nairobi, oh he was a state project. Unknown to many was an agreement reached at the KCB Grounds in Karen that the two compete for the ODM 2013 presidential ticket.
It was one way of galvanising party support. But as Mudavadi intensified his tentacles among the delegates, Raila was alarmed and quickly moved to nip his growing popularity.
But the mudslinging failed to deter Mudavadi's moves that were upsetting the applecart in Raila’s realm.
In came a brand-new fake party constitution that now only allowed the party leader to have the presidential ticket. Its origins weren’t known by the rank-and-file.
The fake constitution now became the point of contention to divert and deflect Mudavadi's focus.
To deflect the standoff, there was the promise to change the constitution back to allow competition.
But it soon emerged the promise was a holding ground to avoid him from abandoning the party. The idea was to hold onto him until it was too late for him to form or join another party.
This would be futile as he bolted to take over UDF, which he used in the 2013 election.
These reminiscences help to underscore that Raila has hung on others’ cocktails for the longest and has only two choices: Repay his debts through the “Asante ya punda ni mateke” or be magnanimous ‘Arudishe Mkono”.
To flirt with the first choice has thorns strewn all over the pathway. The second sounds more like an Azimio la Umoja statesman.
