AJUOK: How naïve ODM leaders created instant Sifuna wave making him champion
They aimed to humiliate Sifuna who didn’t toe broad-based line, but instead they created a hero for the masses.
by COLLINS AJUOK
Audio By Vocalize
Embakasi
East MP Babu
Owino, Vihiga
Senator Godfrey
Osotsi and
Nairobi Senator
Edwin Sifuna
during a rally
in Amalemba,
Kakamega
county
/HANDOUT
One day in politics
is a long time, so they say. Thus, two weeks can amount to ages. Just two weeks
ago, Nairobi senator and ODM secretary-general, Edwin Sifuna, was an embattled party official, rejecting
cooperating with the UDA government.
Nearly every meeting called by the party’s
top organs put removing ‘unruly’ Sifuna’ atop the agenda. But no one had the
guts to pull the trigger until the party’s National Executive Committee met in
Mombasa on Wednesday, February 11.
After a long day of
reportedly stormy deliberations, the NEC announced they had removed him as SG with
immediate effect. My first thoughts were just how naïve the new band of ODM
leaders could be.
It confirmed that former ODM boss Raila Odinga had in life
been surrounded by political lightweights without the mental and intellectual
resilience to read the room and make strategic decisions.
In every sense,
there was never anything wrong with the ODMin the immediate post-Raila period.
SG Sifuna, even when Raila lived, had declined to join the broad-based
bandwagon in the party.
The former Prime Minister appeared unbothered by his
resistance. In fact, there was a point when one could say he encouraged the
existence of two competing party factions to keep his options open.
Upon Raila’s death,
one would have thought the new leadership would adopt the Raila template of
letting the anti-government faction be. But it seems pressure from President
William Ruto was brought to bear on them.
Word on the street is that the
President wanted ODM to crank up the pro-government rhetoric and also to remove the rebellious SG. In
the absence of Raila, there was no one with enough influence in the party who
could call everyone to order and prevail on everyone to take a step back.
Ahead of the NEC
meeting, many personalities in ODM or associated with it, including party
trustees and Raila’s widow, Ida Odinga, had gone out of their way to bring the
competing interests to the negotiating table.
However, the faction that wanted
Sifuna removed, and appeared to enjoy greater access to the corridors of power,
seemed to have decided that, regardless of the consequences, they had to pull
the trigger.
Days after this
“removal” of Sifuna as SG, and despite filing a case at the Political Parties’ Dispute Tribunal, Sifuna held a
huge rally in Kitengela on Sunday, February 15, followed by another
triumphal one in Kakamega on Saturday.
Instead of the humiliation and rejection
the ODM NEC had intended to serve its belligerent SG, they delivered him into
the warm embrace of adoring crowds of young people. He got the sympathy that
was due to him.
In the first
post-Raila ODM Central Committee meeting, there was a semblance of order and a
centrist atmosphere among the leaders. Indeed, the communique read later by
Sifuna indicated that the powerful party organ had resolved to maintain the
status quo of working with the broad-based government until 2027.
For all
intents and purposes, the compromise seemed to be based on acknowledging that
Raila may have supported the broad-based government, but had not yet endorsed
Ruto for a second term.
In all the months
that the Nairobi senator has opposed the choir seeking a second term for Ruto, it has been
widely understood that his role as ODM SG had sort of toned down whatever
radical things he may have wanted to say about the matter.
His party position
was an acknowledged safety net: allowing him to hold a divergent opinion, while
not going all out in a manner that would destroy the party. Yet, in one strange
moment lacking wisdom, the party’s NEC, by announcing his removal, threw him,
like a fish, into water.
Sifuna is
considered abrasive, even arrogant, in some quarters. I have heard someone
describe his delivery style as a “difficult cactus to hug”. But in one move,
the NEC bestowed on him the enviable sympathy tag that every politician loves.
Kenyans love victims.
The politicians who have been detained, tortured by the
regime, sent into exile or generally persecuted tend to appeal to the
humanitarian sense of the masses. They love a martyr.
But those opposed
to Sifuna’s rise didn’t stop there. Nearly all his three rallies - in Busia, Kitengela and
Kakamega - were either
besieged by opposing goons or disrupted by police tear gas. At face value, it
is easy to conclude that neither the regime nor the ODM faction supporting
President Ruto was prepared for Sifuna taking his case to the people and
becoming such a national sensation. The reaction has been disjointed and plain
stupid.
I feel sorry for
ODM leader Oburu Oginga. Left alone to make his own decisions, he probably
would have chosen the Raila path of letting dissenters stay in the party.
But
it is clear that he is under pressure from his faction of the party to
fast-track the cooperation agreement between ODM and UDA, which pushes him to
ignore any operational or legal obstacles in the way. The removal of the SG was
met by a stay order by the court.
Perhaps even
the National Delegates Congress , his
faction called for next month, might be injuncted in due course. While that is
going on, it is now obvious that the refrain, “Sifuna is not bigger than the
party,” has been shredded to little pieces.
In appealing to a multi-ethnic
constituency across the party, Sifuna has come out as a darling of a sizeable
population way beyond the traditional ODM bases. I don’t know if the centrist
party officials and trustees who had been burning the midnight oil seeking
reconciliation within the party are still at it, but clearly, Sifuna, if he chooses to listen to any unity
talk, will do it from a position of strength.
I’ve heard people
ask, “To what end is his removal?” I wonder if anyone involved in this new movement - chiefly Sifuna himself,
Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, and ODM “rebels” such as deputy party
leader Godfrey Osotsi and
Saboti MP Caleb Amisi ¾ have even had
time to process the events as they happen quite fast.
Between the NEC
action and the Kakamega rally, everything has moved quite fast. I am certain
the whole team will soon take a break to just internalise everything that has
happened in such a short time.
But I am sure that
in the interim period, the momentum of the outpouring of support, if it
translates to registration of these masses as voters, and is sustained into
2027, will become a key factor in next year’s elections.
The Sifuna support is
made up largely of young, Gen Z, some of whom shook the foundations of the
nation with their protests in June 2024 and its subsequent commemoration in
June last year. Their support is not transferable, so it will be a challenge if they
want Sifuna to go for the presidency and the Nairobi senator isn’t ready yet, or wants to
support someone else.
Interestingly, this
is a conversation we should never have been having, if the new ODM leadership
had let the status quo ride on until the next campaign season.
In the hurry to
conform to the President’s wishes, they may have fatally destroyed their own
party and created the exact scenario that party trustees and reconciliation
leaders feared: the possibility of most members following the SG wherever he
decides to go.
Which also means that soon, Ruto may discover he is negotiating with
a mere shell of ODM in the form of the Linda Ground faction. Interesting times
lie ahead.
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