Raila and other stories

Raila is a fraud and I want my money back. No, no…keep the change because this man is one interesting piece of work.

What cannot bend must break, and what you break you own. This appears to me to be the single-minded intent with which Raila signed the National Accord of April 2008. The date says it all, the 13^th of all days. There is therefore no need to further pollute the ozone with carbon-emissions from Geneva-bound planes on hatchet-burying missions when the accord is being actively negotiated in front of our very eyes. I thought it callous, the call for snap elections when the smoke had barely risen from Kiambaa. We owe something to the dead. An assurance perhaps that none will die as ghastly as they did.

Raila is a born strategist with superb organizational skills. The Rainbow Alliance that was instrumental in Kibaki’s first successful presidential bid had his fingerprints all over it. (I refuse to comment on his second bid). The ’07 pentagon merger had that Agwambo shine as well. He was right on the money with Balala and Mudavadi because these were men of little consequence. Men who could be compelled and whose dreams for the presidency were nothing but ‘idle flights of fancy’.  But with Ruto, he refused to see a man like him. A self-made man who carved himself out of nothing- literally because Ruto had neither a name nor an inheritance. He made his own way by the sheer force of his personality and the strength of his intellect. Raila either disregarded or  refused to see that Ruto’s  eyes too were on the prize. Of these two Raila seems to me what euphemism ascribes ‘the lesser evil’. His reformist credentials are more ‘up-market’ than Ruto’s.

His detentions and series of incarcerations in the eighties following coup collaboration suspicions and later KRM(Kenya Reform Movement) involvement. He is an indispensable figure in multiparty reform saga. But he upsets this unblemished record with a brief stint in the Moi government; Energy minister 2001-2003. And  serves as KANU Secretary General after subsequent party elections. I can rationalize this in a world where the end justifies the means and I do respect ambition. But when you lie with the dogs…KANU is almost a rite of passage where every politician must ‘make his bones’. For him is the Molasses stench.

There is something restless about him. Something restless about the Magdeburg-trained Engineer who lectures for five years, quits to join KBS and quits that too. After his return from Norway in ’92 he joined FORD, challenged Wamalwa for chairmanship after his father’s death, lost and left. Joined NDP, then KANU,LDP,NARC and finally ODM after the 57-43 referendum of November, 2005. A serial party hopper? He reminds me of Ahab who sails the high seas in search of the ferocious whale, Moby dick, which manages to unfailingly elude his nets.  And when the chance is tantalizingly within reach…there are no good endings. If Melville’s literary masterpiece is anything to go by, I think one shouldn’t get addicted to the chase.

And now as an arm of the Grand Confusion he has lost that thing that was instrumental in shaping his career, namely the right to criticize the government. It is this that the She-man from Gichugi gained through her resignation- a moral high ground. For Martha was neither a reformer nor a lone agent for change in a system that was unspeakably corrupt; the picture she was trying to sell a while back. She was Kibaki’s personal pittbull and the snub in favour of Uhuru in ’08 was too much to bear…’ nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’ Enough said. It is this system that Raila is now a part of and by dint of the guilt by association rule; the ‘it ain’t me’ argument can only take him so far. The whole ‘PNU is taking the reform agenda hostage’ angle is getting old. It won’t  wash till 2012.

And after, in my view, winning the bitterly debated leader of government business round I advise Muthaura to have a manageable fear for his post.

All in all I do think Raila is in the twilight years of his existence, politically, and while his ambitions might not have been fully quenched he should concentrate on cementing his legacy. Something that maize is not helping too greatly with. There will be a handover to the next crop.  He should use the power he has consolidated so far to initiate reforms, not wrestle more power through the accord. When will it ever be enough to effect change?