Musalia Mudavadi’s prelude that announced an alliance of his party’s ANC and Deputy President William Ruto’s UDA immediately ignited fissures in Oka , Western Kenya and the nation at large.
No sooner had Mudavadi completed any ritual with DP Ruto, than Oka principals led by Kalonso Musyoka (Wiper) and Gideon Moi (Kanu) walked out of the ANC launch at Bomas of Kenya.
The walkout was the first evidence of Oka rejection and sign of uneasiness about ANC-UDA alliance arrangement.
Let me deviate a little and utilise the earthquake metaphor since the ANC leader applied it for this event. As a curriculum expert, I know that seismologists deal with epistemology of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. I had experience of earthquake while in a secondary school in the 1960s and had to close for one term because the dormitories, cafeteria and dining halls were affected with major cracks.
An earthquake is a natural disaster that once it happens, it causes many problems, losses and difficulties that require disaster management mitigation team to attend to. Scientifically, when an earthquake erupts its magnitude is assessed. The one that which occurred in the Rift Valley in 1928 had a magnitude scale of 6.9 and another in Turkana 1913 was at Ms6.0. These magnitudes were very strong.
The Mudavadi earthquake cannot be measured using the Richter magnitude scale but his anxiety side effect can be measured using psychological tools such as Hamilton’s Anxiety (Stress) Rating scale.
This normally indicates the level of anxiety severity people have that arise from party disequilibrium or instability. Interestingly, we could observe tectonic activity of confused movements of people from the Bomas epicentre.
Such movements of the Kanu, Wiper and X parties could be traced by the logarithm of the amplitude plotted against the distance(s) of walkouts. One can easily find curves that can show a correlation with estimated magnitudes of the Mudavadi earthquake.
The Hamilton’s anxiety scale can measure those who suffer from psychological stress of Oka collapse using a severity scale that can be scored from very low severity to high probability severity/symptoms. Various reactions have emerged after the Ruto-Mudavadi pact caught many people unawares.
First, Wiper lawmakers have dubbed Mudavadi a political traitor. The previous prediction by Prof Herman Manyora that Oka would die a natural death came much earlier than expected.
Second, the handshake between Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta has metamorphosed into a glow of oneness of co-existence in the Azimio la Umoja.This union is attractive non-sectarian, intimate and embraces a high degree of national consciousness.
Cotu secretary general Francis Atwoli has cast aspersions on the abrupt relationship between ANC and Ford on one side and UDA, saying that Ruto appears to fund the two outfits. He calls them political commercial kiosks.
Third, Mudavadi’s speech at Bomas appeared provocative and centred on judging others without bracketing himself. Worse still, Mudavadi with untamed tongue, said Raila was not a leader who can be trusted.
He further decried politics of deceit, conmanship and chicanery. He also accused the Jubilee government of auctioning the country. Mudavadi has become rather defamatory, provocative, toxic, offensive and equally not convincing. Any false defamatory statements made, of libelous or slanderous nature, may be used against him in a lawsuit.
Uhuru’s government, by comparison, has been the best. The Amherst gentleman of a 200 year university has achieved what appertains to the Motto (:’Let them enlighten the lands’ )-- ‘Terras irradiant’. A real democrat like presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, amongst others of like nature.
If Mudavadi keeps on repeating these negativities, it is apparent he lacks the intelligent and economic quotient to realise the problems that Kenya is facing today — unemployed, vulnerable poor men and women, IDPs and unmet teachers and lecturers’ CBAs — are all be linked to corruption.
Economic hardships we are experiencing today correlate highly with a summation of all Kenyan corruption. Atwoli has already mentioned how Mudavadi in 1994, Mudavadi ploughed in the redundancy clause into Finance Bill, and affects workers up to today.
There are numerous corruption allegations such as Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, Sh283 million city cemetery land scandal, Arror and Kimwarer dams Sh63 billion controversial scandal, NYS Eurobond, land grabbing and Kemsa Covid billionaires, amongst others. For that matter, instead of talking about Uchumi kwanza, Why do we shy away from drumming up Corruption Kwanza.?
Fourth, Matthew 7:15 warns: “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”.
We are too fond of judging others as deceitful, conmen/women and not trustable. We need to suspend or withhold our presuppositions, biases, and take apposition in which we can say: “I'm OK – You're OK”.
Every human being, without exception, is valuable, important, and to be taken into account. These are the attitudes for everyday life.
Sometimes we are full of attacking and blaming others of small mistakes, while we gloss over our big messes. It is to be hoped that we will get one of the aspirants to be a tenant at the house on the hill.
Prof Makau Mutua and Atwoli have said they would sleep easy when Mudavadi is in State House. But they don’t see Mudavadi heading there in August.
However, they see Raila — the Kenya’s longest serving political detainee and a liberation fighter for Kenya’s democracy — occupying State House.
In his hands, most of the people feel safe.
Prof. Awino is a university lecturer
