You Missed This
It was an eventful day for PM Raila on his first day in office after being sworn in. Mungiki’s call for ceasefire dwarfs all pronouncements and actions. But with that relief comes the million dollar question: is Mungiki playing smart to make hay when the sun is still up by striking the iron rod when still red hot?
Mungiki leadership went over their heads in claiming Raila as their leader whom they voted for. The first part of that declaration may be true as at now were it not for the white lie in the second part. Well, as the adage goes politics makes of strange bed fellows. While Raila’s detractors will promptly see an opportunist hellbent on outshining the THIEF-IN-CHIEF, Railamaniacs can only see a leader with the courage to confront a problem head on.
Whatever the case you cannot fail to see through the cleverly crafted scheme to be in good books and promptly cut a deal when an opportunity presents itself. Call is having the nose to smell a business aroma or being savvy or simply being calculative and sly. That leaves you asking, who is fooling who given Mungiki’s reverence to cultural purity which is at variance with Raila’s cultural roots, if you know what I mean.
Hostage to serial goofs
Depending on the shade of your political lens, Raila’s first day in office and the attendant actions can be seen as either TRIUMPH or TRAP. Yes triumph for breathing fresh air of leadership on a hitherto rudderless Kenya. And trap for falling for calculative deception clothed as loyalty. How sustainable either hypothesis materializes only time will tell and it will come pretty soon.
Pragmatism demands that we overdose the grand coalition with benefit of doubt before we start breathing fire on their necks. We have a unique opportunity to collectively retrace our steps as a nation. But then we have to tread into this venture guardedly given that our past is littered with serial episodes of dishonesty.
A brutal and honest examination of ourselves will reveal that the present political is what Kenyan voters had in mind during the 2002 elections. But then that is plenty of water under the bridge. True leadership is evident in what a leader does with what is available to rescue his subjects from a hole and not how comfortable he makes the conditions inside the hole.