• In our system of realpolitik, the occupant of State House holds all the cards
Image: PCS
I don’t know how the comings and goings through the years are recorded at the various State Houses, State Lodges and the President’s office at Harambee House in Nairobi, but more and more these days, I get the feeling that these records provide a base for some of President Ruto’s political strategies.
While from all accounts, our nation’s fifth President had a frosty relationship with the second holder of that office, especially after the future fifth abandoned Kanu for ODM in 2005, it would seem he has kept hold of the Moi playbook and revised it for his own devices.
It helps that President Ruto is such a good study and clearly an astute politician.
For instance, his recent breakfast meeting with ODM political leaders, which must have seemed like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to party leader Raila Odinga, could have come straight from the events witnessed at State House Nakuru on Monday May 24, 1993.
I remember because I later wrote an analysis of the visit and the effect it had on the DP, which was not unlike the effect that President Ruto’s meeting with ODM MPs had on ODM and its leader.
On that day, President Moi played host to a high-powered delegation of politicians from the opposition Democratic Party (DP), leaving the ordinarily unflappable Mwai Kibaki quite shaken.
The politicians hosted at State House Nakuru were not just leaders from the DP but some of Kibaki’s closest confidantes and DP financiers.
The guest list featured Njenga Karume (DP executive committee member), Isaiah Mathenge (DP MP, Nyeri Town), Kihika Kimani (DP MP, Laikipia West), Ngengi Muigai (DP executive committee member) and Andrew Ngumba (DP member).
Just for good measure and to show he had his finger in other pies, Moi also invited Geoffrey Kareithi (Ford-Asili), George Mwicigi (KNC) and Henry Kinyua, formerly of the Kenya Planters Cooperative Union.
Apart from all being leading lights of the Gikuyu Embu and Meru Association, which, despite DP denials, made up the core of the party’s membership, all of these men (there were no women) had at one time or another locked horns with Moi and could by no measure have been considered his fans.
There was no end to the speculation over what had been the drawcard for the Gema/DP visit to State House Nakuru.
Some suggested this would be the start of a defection back to Kanu of these leaders and their followers.
After all, it had been less than six months since the December 1992 election, which had seen Kanu and Moi hold onto power, amidst reports of massive vote theft, to win a very narrow margin over the split opposition, and already, Moi had managed to sew divisions and engineer defections in Kenneth Matiba and Martin Shikuku’s Ford-Asili.
The most likely answer that emerged at the time was the one that has driven politics in Kenya since forever: siasa za tumbo.
Most, if not all, of the leaders of the DP delegation owned large tracts of land in the Rift Valley, which had been affected by what some called tribal clashes and others referred to as ethnic cleansing in the run up to the 1992 elections. And they had gone to meet Moi, whose party controlled the Rift, to smooth things over.
Also, there was speculation that many members of the delegation had financial interests that a vengeful Moi and Kanu might have put at risk.
I am not sure what really drove nine ODM legislators to State House, namely Gideon Ochanda (Bondo), Elisha Odhiambo (Gem), Mark Nyamita (Uriri), Caroli Omondi (Suba South), Shakeel Shabir (Kisumu East, Independent but pro-ODM) Felix Odiwuor alias Jalang’o (Lang’ata), Paul Abuor (Rongo), John Owino (Awendo) and Kisumu Senator Tom Ojienda.
But I bet it wasn’t a desire to see what the Rutos have done with the interior decor of the place since they moved in.
The point here is, whether the Kenyan opposition likes President Ruto or not, in our system of politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations, also known as realpolitik, the occupant of State House holds all the cards, and resistance for the sake of resistance is futile.
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