• The Tangatanga brigade has been swift to scream betrayal and blame Raila Odinga for the sudden dampening of relations.
• If they are to re-engineer themselves they must get past denial and depression swiftly and change tact. Truth be told. They have been outplayed.
Elie Wiesel stated, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death it’s indifference."
Many a young lover to their grief have experienced the first stanza of this statement, when your one time lover and supposedly future wife decides to give one the silent treatment and completely ignore entreaties from the former lover or his/her agents.
It is excruciatingly painful as one completely loses focus and appetite leading to depression. Recent events in our political arena indicate the bromance between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto has come to an abrupt end and no amount of cajoling or grovelling can put “Humpty Dumpty” together again.
The Tangatanga brigade has been swift to scream betrayal and blame Raila Odinga for the sudden dampening of relations. That, I surmise, is incredibly simplistic.
The old saying “a bad workman blames his tools “rings true. A third party cannot enter a bromance and sour relations that swiftly. There must have been serious underlying factors\issues that the President was considering acting upon that were positively confirmed and proved by the third party. This led to the souring of relations and impending divorce that is only awaiting the three talaks.
If there is a single thread that flows through the Tangatanga strategy, it is simplism. Theirs was to befriend Uhuru, enter the inner sanctums of power and then carry out a palace coup through the party ranks and make the President lame duck. For such a scheme to eventuality take place, two or more things have to happen. The President had to be extremely naïve, foolish, asleep or disabled.
Secondly, he needed to be living alone in a political utopia. Everybody, other than the Tangatanga camp, knows the President, an accomplished rugby player in his own right, is no fool and no pushover. He also has very competent advisers and a very stubborn streak when his conscience tells him he is right.
The Tangatanga brigade in their undiluted avarice and desire for power underestimated the President.
Their strategy also planned to adopt the tactics used by President Daniel Moi to ascend to power after Jomo Kenyatta. Successful tactics and strategies are usually covert/top secret. Many of our current crop of politicians lived through the Kenyatta I-Moi succession and were, therefore, able to lay successful counter-strategies and obstacles that derailed Tangatanga.
Their handling of President Moi was awful and absolutely disgraceful. They showed the old man no respect and routed his son Jonathan’s political ambitions in Eldama Ravine constituency. They completely ignored or failed to decipher Moi’s influence in the national political arena and on the Kenyatta Family. This was a tragic mistake and maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back. Baringo Senator Gideon Moi is now poised to reap big in the new relationship with Jubilee.
Tangatanga are now in denial as they lick their wounds.
If they are to re-engineer themselves they must get past denial and depression swiftly and change tact. Truth be told. They have been outplayed.
Their best-laid plans have gone up in smoke. Take a leaf from Raila Odinga, who has been whipped in four presidential elections but always stayed on his feet, moving!
Walking around moaning and mourning is counterproductive, especially now that the general election is two years away. It is time for swift damage control. Abandon ship Jubilee and jump into another outfit hopefully forming new coalitions in the hope that they can challenge what Jubilee is currently crafting.
A true man who is jilted by a mistress doesn’t stand by the street corner wailing betrayal such as Senator Kipchumba Murkomen and others. Re-direct that energy. True men pick and dust themselves up; do a post-mortem of what went wrong and quickly woo another belle. Life must go on.