There was once a Russian student whose cat had a litter of kittens.
When asked to write a paper for her class, the student wrote about the mother cat and her kittens. The next day, she read her paper to the class. In it she told about how these kittens were born. There were five of them, and they were all good little Communists. The teacher liked the paper very much.
One week later, a Moscow inspector visited the school. The teacher, proud of her student, asked her to read her paper again. When she came to the part about the kittens, she said there were five kittens and only two of them were Communists.
The teacher was quite surprised at the unforeseen change of narrative. After the inspector left, the teacher asked the child why she had changed her story. “Well”, the student answered, “three of them have since opened their eyes”.
The opening of the kittens’ eyes is likened to the boiling frog syndrome.
If a frog is suddenly put into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out and save itself from impending death. But, if it is put in lukewarm water, with the temperature rising slowly, it will not perceive any danger to itself because it is only slightly uncomfortable in its warm surroundings. It keeps adjusting itself thinking that the slow, gradual change in temperature is normal. Only when the slow change suddenly starts accelerating, does the frog realise the danger, but by then it is too late. It is cooked to death.
This week, Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru-Kamotho surprised the nation when she took to social media to vent her frustrations.
Waiguru claimed her office had been raided by anti-corruption agency officials when she appeared to be lifting her foot off the pedal of the BBI by stating she wanted to ‘keep quiet a bit’. The governor also revealed subtle threats towards her had been issued, just days after she remarked that she was introspecting on her political way forward.
As if to remove all doubts in our minds in the event that we thought her Twitter handle had been hacked, or was a parody, she personally graced one of the television stations and stated as much. She was even more emphatic this time around that those holding leadership positions in Mt Kenya region were walking a totally divergent path from their followers, courtesy of the stalled BBI process.
It is not lost on us that earlier, when charges on the NYS scandal were proffered against her, she rebranded herself, aligned with the then dominant Jubilee Party, and clinched the Kirinyaga governor position.
Later on, when she was facing impeachment at the Senate, she did not squander the opportunity to publicize optics with ODM leader Raila Odinga. This was precipitated by an impeachment motion that recommended her removal from office, citing abuse of office, conferring benefits to herself and gross violation of the law.
One of Raila’s moniker has become mwosho mmoja, sarcastically implying those allegedly accused of corruption, endeavor to sanitise their allegations by seeking his protection.
Shortly thereafter, Governor Waiguru was acquitted by the Senate on the grounds that the charges were not substantiated. However, I hasten to say that correlation does not always imply causation.
After this acquittal, she was one of the prominent cheerleaders championing the BBI product, and firm supporters of the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila.
When Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata told Uhuru that the BBI was unpopular in Mt Kenya region, Governor Waiguru was among those who chided him as being a cheap populist, hysterically emotional, misrepresenting facts and reality, and that his views could only be termed as personal and prejudiced.
Today, her tune has changed. She has backtracked and affirmed that the BBI, the handshake and Jubilee are untenable in Mt Kenya region.
Begs the question, like the Russian student’s kittens, has she finally opened her eyes to the political shift, real or imagined, in Mt Kenya region? Or like the frog, is she simply adept at adapting for political survival by jumping out of boiling political waters? And pray do tell, why should she be believable now?
Since the earliest polities, leaders have always worried about their ability to hold on to power. And the competition for political office has always been fierce. The battle for elective office is often laced with vicious personal attacks, acrimonious charges of corruption, and abuse of office that degenerates into facetious attacks on personal indecency and incompetence.
Despite this harsh reality, there is always a surfeit of candidates for elective office. This is a curious phenomenon because from the outside, being in elective office does not appear to be like much fun.
The pressure to deliver is constant, every action is scrutinised and criticised, the phone incessantly rings, and it is impossible to please everybody. When you falter in your decisions, people die, and when you make the right call, its presumed. It’s a thankless job. So, why the fervor to retain elective office?
I submit that it is because elective office provides incumbents with a myriad of opportunities for great personal aggrandizement and creation of special benefits for their political allies. The majority leave office a lot wealthier and influential than when they came to power.
Make no mistake. No leader rules alone. Even the most despotic oppressive dictator cannot survive the loss of support among their core constituents and political backers. To secure this support, one must consistently dole out public resources and opportunities for them to maximise their private goods because they have the power to install and depose you once in office.
Hence, compromise after compromise is made, and lie after lie is told, for the sake of acquiring or retaining political power. One’s ideals and principles become hollow pretense and mere words. And for every good deed done, two or three necessary evils must be committed.
To protect this ill-gotten wealth, they need the political power. However, the influence of political power cuts, both ways.
On one hand, it can influence the take-up of new charges particularly when an individual falls out of favor with the incumbent political power, or is in stiff competition with others wielding more political power; and on the other hand, it can also wipe out existing charges, especially if the accused politician overtly or covertly enjoys political patronage from powerful politicians.
In politico-speak the latter is known as Teflon Effect. It is when accusations of wrongdoing do not stick to a person.
Without political power, or the ability to procure some, one has no Teflon Effect. What you have instead is the Velcro Effect, where everything you are accused of sticks like white on rice. And so you cannot stave off the law, or stall the judicial process for as long as those with the Teflon Effect can.
And I posit this is the reason Governor Waiguru’s latest political moves are a harbinger of what we should shortly expect from various politicos across the country. Wanjiku, it isn’t, never was, and never will be about you. It is about political survival.
Finally, my unsolicited advice is to Governor Waiguru. When your ship is taking in water, you don’t jump. You grab a bucket.
Likewise, abandoning the political ship of the BBI, the Jubilee Party and the Handshake, that you so believed in, makes you an apostate. And defectors are not trusted, even by those whom they prefer.
The trouble with most leaders is that they don’t know when to exit – UK conservative MP.
