JUMA: Removal threats against Wetang’ula far-fetched
The political colossus called Wetang’ula has weathered many storms, some quite intense
by NICK JUMA
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National Assembly Speaker Moses Masika Wetang’ula/FILE
If you doubt that National Assembly Speaker Moses Masika
Wetang’ula, is a brave man,
you only need to recall 1982,
when as a young lawyer, he stepped
forward to represent the coup plotters of that year, led by Senior Private
Hezekiah Ochuka, at their treason
trial.
This was under the infamous
single-party rule, and a police state,
in any association with people who
had just tried to overthrow the constitutional order could have been
seen as inviting jail or death.
This courage and resilience must
have been noted in high places,
enough for Wetang’ula to be nominated to Parliament after the 1992
elections, when the ruling party
would take up all the nomination
slots in Parliament.
After he finally entered Parliament in the 2002 elections, he has not lost any elections. You could say the Speaker is a man
who knows his stuff.
Whenever any political drama
surrounds Speaker Wetang’ula,
the common story is that he is being persecuted for refusing to fold
his party, Ford Kenya, to join the
ruling UDA, as did his counterpart,
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia
Mudavadi.
On one level, it is easy to understand the Speaker’s motivation.
Unlike Mudavadi’s ANC, a largely
small-time player with no premium
history, Ford Kenya has been one of
the most consequential players on
the nation’s political scene.
At the restoration of multiparty
democracy in Kenya in 1991, and especially after the split of the original
FORD, Ford Kenya was led by none
other than the great Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
It had some of the finest
politicians to ever grace this land,
a large group of uncompromising
firebrands then loosely known as the
Young Turks.
In fact, the cast was so
elite in terms of their political
power, that even Wetang’ula would
never have featured among them if
he had been a member of the party
at that time.
Many political commentators
point out that Jaramogi was buried
in a casket draped in the Ford Kenya
colours and the party’s lion symbol
of the party.
In terms of grounding
and history, the party was Jaramogi’s
home, a revolutionary movement for
which he bore scars from the trenches of the Second Liberation struggle.
If you were to strictly follow a
political doctrine of the liberation
movement, you would aver that
Wetang’ula in fact holds the party
in trust for those who placed their
faith in it.
It would be foolhardy to
just fold a party of this nature and join another, for political expediency. Especially if this entailed dissolving Ford Kenya to join a political
Johnny-come-lately, such as UDA.
The latest threats directed at the
National Assembly Speaker come
from a ruling by the High Court on
February 7, quashing a 2022 ruling
by Speaker Wetang’ula, in which he
had declared the Kenya Kwanza coalition the Majority in the National
Assembly.
Regardless of how this plays out,
the Speaker will surely be aware that
the forces gunning for him are many
and diverse. In the fast-changing political scene, his seat may even become part of the negotiation items
on the table.
In the tight 2022 election, it is widely acknowledged that
his delivery of Bungoma county to
Kenya Kwanza ultimately tilted the
balance in favour of President William Ruto.
The political colossus called
Wetang’ula has weathered many
storms, some quite intense, and it
would be naïve to assume that he
is a pushover.
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National Assembly Speaker Moses Masika Wetang’ula/FILE
