Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 12, 2005 20:31:11 GMT 3
A Rather Personal Introspective from Onyango Oloo
A little known factoid about Kiraitu Murungi is that his father spent almost a decade in detention because he was a Mau Mau freedom fighter. My former lawyer and the country's constitutional and justice minister comes from a militant nationalist tradition.
A well known factoid about Raila Odinga is that his father spent decades in the political doldrums because of his opposition to colonialism and necolonialism. My former Kamiti prison mate and the country's roads and works minister comes from a militant nationalist tradition.
In 1992 Kiraitu shunned the move by many Gikuyu, Meru and Embu politicians to troop either to Matiba's Ford-Asili or Kibaki's DP (which was widely seen then as a KANU secret weapon created at Moi's instigation to destablize the two FORDs). Kiraitu Murungi ran on a Ford-Kenya ticket when Jaramogi was the Presidential candidate and defying ethnic stereotypes, won his Imenti seat handily, as Muite did in Kabete and Imanyara almost did in his own constituency. Back then Raila and Kiraitu were bosom buddies, comrades in arms pushing for a national democratic agenda. Raila of course also defied conventional ethnic expectations by declining to run in Nyanza where he could have won ANY seat, choosing instead to mix it up in the multi-ethnic urban constituency of Langata- which is of course, not populated by Luos alone.
Both of these Kenyan politicians have paid their dues. For many years Kiraitu Murungi risked detention defending clients like Raila Odinga, Edward Oyugi, Kamoji Wachiira, Alamin Mazrui, Onyango Oloo and others. Not too many people know that he was actually briefly in exile in 1990 following the detention of his law partner Gibson Kamau Kuria. Raila Odinga was of course detained three times by the Moi-KANU regime.
Speaking of political about turns, Raila moved from fighting for the Presidency in 1997 to cooperating with President Moi in 1998. And Kiraitu moved from criticizing DP and Mwai Kibaki between 1992 and 1997 to becoming one of Kibaki's top aides between 1998 to date.
These are MAINSTREAM Kenyan politicians. Horse trading and flip flopping is the name of their real politik strategies and tactics. Those of us who come from socialist and anti-imperialist positions have had occasion to critique ALL of them.
My point is the following:
In sharp contrast to people like John Michuki and Njenga Karume, Kiraitu Murungi actually has progressive political credentials. In fact I would even venture to say that he is a social democrat as opposed to a liberal democrat- closer in ideology to Raila Odinga and Anyang Nyongo than to Amos Kimunya and Simeon Nyachae.
I have heard Kiraitu make a lot of of outrageous statements. The one thing I have not heard him utter is anything tribal. Perhaps I still have a soft spot for the Justice minister because I remember how he worked so hard to secure my release from Kamiti- when he did not have to- when one of his former partners had been co-opted by Moi and it would have been much easier for him to be a regular government lawyer. He did make a conscious choice to throw in his lot with the "wachache wasiotosheka" at a time when some of the current loudmouths were singing KANU Tawala!
But it is for the same reason why I am exceedlingly perplexed to see him in bed with tribal chauvinists and power mongers. The Kiraitu I thought I knew was a man of integrity, modest, generous, patriotic and hard working.
Sometimes in the frenzy to score political points, we forget about the human beings who bear the names that we have turned into ogres.
Take Raila Odinga for instance. There is no one more demonized than the Langata MP on the Kenyan political scene today. I have had the opportunity of spending hours with the LDP supremo and with my usual frankness I asked him a lot of critical questions. One such occasion was on Friday, August 25, 2000 at the Lester B. Pearson airport here in Toronto. I had gone to meet him and other Kenyan politicians who were touring the United States, Canada and Switzerland (the others were current NAK MP and assistant minister Peter Kyalo Kaindi, current KANU Secretary General William Ruto, current Orange leading light Najib Balala, current CKRC Commissioner Dr. Kavetsa Adagala, unsuccessful Kisii area parliamentary canidate Professor Tumbo, current NARC foreign affairs assistant minister Orwa Ojode- Uhuru Kenyatta who was supposed to be part of the entourage did not make it).
While waiting to confirm his flight to the UK, we spent some time chit chatting, Raila and I over there at the airport. He recalled how he had grown up with my late cousin Veronica Nyamodi and the rest of the Ohanga family (mind you, Raila's dad had walloped my uncle(technically this is not accurate in Luo) Apollo Ohanga in elections in Nyanza in 1957)and so on and so forth.
I asked him point blank what had propelled him to dump his oppositional stance to seek a cooperation pact with KANU.
He told me two interesting things.
First he said, right after the announcement of the 1997 election results, there was a consensus among the main candidates( Kibaki was runner up, Raila came third, the late Wamalwa was fourth, Ngilu was fifth and the Wamweres, Anyonas, Waiyakis and Wangaris were also rans) that the opposition would challenge the results because many people were convinced that Mwai Kibaki had actually won. According to Raila- and here I am relying on my usually reliable memory, but I am human so I could be erring on a detail here and there- Kibaki got cold feet and sent feelers to the Moi camp that they were not going to challenge the results. This infuriated Raila and the NDP and they considered this a betrayal and a retreat from agreed upon positions.
Henceforth, Raila informed me (again if my memory serves me right) the NDP would strive to carve out their own independent swathe in national politics and use the incumbency of KANU to their (NDP) advantage. According to Raila, thanks to the cooperation pact, the NDP was later able to gain inroads and footholds into many areas of the country that were formerly no- go KANU zones. At the same time, according to Raila, NDP used their closeness to the government to push KANU's agenda to the LEFT and pressurized it to open up democratic space. I reminded Raila about the harassment of people like Ochuodho and Orengo and the near lynching of folks like Kibwana and Mwandawiro in Kisumu on one occasion. He really did not have an answer that was satisfactory to me. Remember this conversation was taking place BEFORE Raila, Adhu Awiti and others were incorporated into the Kenyan government as ministers and assistant ministers.
Now if you study closely the moves of Kiraitu of abandoning FORD-Kenya for the more conservative KANU clone the DP and working his way to become one of Kibaki's top lieutenants and compare it with Raila abandoning the opposition benches to become, first, a Moi cabinet minister and later KANU Secretary General (for crying out loud Agwambo Tinga Tinga!) I see no appreciable differences.
Both made OPPORTUNISTIC flip flops because their eyes were locked on political power, plain and simple. None of these two politicians have ever shied away from charges that they want to be politically powerful. I consider such politicians more credible than other people who want virtually the same thing but cloak it in pseudo altruistic mumbo jumbo.
One statement attributed to Kiraitu has always puzzled and perplexed me. One of my good Nairobi friends was telling me about two years ago that during the run up to the launch of Safina , two very interesting things happened. One was a fax from a well known law professor close to Kiraitu where the legal beagle blurted out a crude agenda that would propel Safina to power. Use X, Y and Z, with the first two being well known LUO leftwing activists to make some noise against the dictatorship and at the crucial moment dump these guys so that the real cabal would take over. At that time, the Safina core included Muite, Kiraitu, Muturi Kagano, Anyang Nyongo, Robert Shaw and Richard Leakey with Imanyara taking off in a huff when he could not secure the leadership. The second was a narrative of a drinking session where a slightly tipsy Kiraitu turned to his pal Prof. Anyang' Nyong'o and admitted to him frankly that one of the reasons why the National Planning minister never became head of Safina was that there were forces in Safina which had resolved that there was just no way a Luo would head that upstart outfit.
Why am I recycling these two anecdotes?
Simply to illustrate that even as far back as the mid 1990s people like Muite and Kiraitu had a SECRET AGENDA in place to GRAB POLITICAL POWER and that is why my former lawyer is being disingenous when he heaps all the blame on Raila Odinga as far as unbridled political ambitions are concerned.
I do have even more juicy tales to tell about Kiraitu's secret shenanigans, but my point is not to embarrass my former lawyer- like I said, I still prefer to remember him as the kindly soul who invited me for lunch to his modest South C home and worked very hard to make sure I got a Kenyan passport when the authorities were pushing me around in 1994 (thanks also to Willy Mutunga, the late George Kapten and the late George Anyona AND a mistress of a certain member of the cabinet who happened to have been my year mate at the University of Nairobi).
You know, if I was in Kenya, I would make a personal attempt to reconcile Raila Odinga and Kiraitu Murungi. I firmly believe that at the end of the day, they have, in their own ways, Kenya's interests at heart- that is when they are not held captive by other people's nefarious agendas.
I do sound rather mushy and sentimental today don't I?
Onyango Oloo
Toronto
A little known factoid about Kiraitu Murungi is that his father spent almost a decade in detention because he was a Mau Mau freedom fighter. My former lawyer and the country's constitutional and justice minister comes from a militant nationalist tradition.
A well known factoid about Raila Odinga is that his father spent decades in the political doldrums because of his opposition to colonialism and necolonialism. My former Kamiti prison mate and the country's roads and works minister comes from a militant nationalist tradition.
In 1992 Kiraitu shunned the move by many Gikuyu, Meru and Embu politicians to troop either to Matiba's Ford-Asili or Kibaki's DP (which was widely seen then as a KANU secret weapon created at Moi's instigation to destablize the two FORDs). Kiraitu Murungi ran on a Ford-Kenya ticket when Jaramogi was the Presidential candidate and defying ethnic stereotypes, won his Imenti seat handily, as Muite did in Kabete and Imanyara almost did in his own constituency. Back then Raila and Kiraitu were bosom buddies, comrades in arms pushing for a national democratic agenda. Raila of course also defied conventional ethnic expectations by declining to run in Nyanza where he could have won ANY seat, choosing instead to mix it up in the multi-ethnic urban constituency of Langata- which is of course, not populated by Luos alone.
Both of these Kenyan politicians have paid their dues. For many years Kiraitu Murungi risked detention defending clients like Raila Odinga, Edward Oyugi, Kamoji Wachiira, Alamin Mazrui, Onyango Oloo and others. Not too many people know that he was actually briefly in exile in 1990 following the detention of his law partner Gibson Kamau Kuria. Raila Odinga was of course detained three times by the Moi-KANU regime.
Speaking of political about turns, Raila moved from fighting for the Presidency in 1997 to cooperating with President Moi in 1998. And Kiraitu moved from criticizing DP and Mwai Kibaki between 1992 and 1997 to becoming one of Kibaki's top aides between 1998 to date.
These are MAINSTREAM Kenyan politicians. Horse trading and flip flopping is the name of their real politik strategies and tactics. Those of us who come from socialist and anti-imperialist positions have had occasion to critique ALL of them.
My point is the following:
In sharp contrast to people like John Michuki and Njenga Karume, Kiraitu Murungi actually has progressive political credentials. In fact I would even venture to say that he is a social democrat as opposed to a liberal democrat- closer in ideology to Raila Odinga and Anyang Nyongo than to Amos Kimunya and Simeon Nyachae.
I have heard Kiraitu make a lot of of outrageous statements. The one thing I have not heard him utter is anything tribal. Perhaps I still have a soft spot for the Justice minister because I remember how he worked so hard to secure my release from Kamiti- when he did not have to- when one of his former partners had been co-opted by Moi and it would have been much easier for him to be a regular government lawyer. He did make a conscious choice to throw in his lot with the "wachache wasiotosheka" at a time when some of the current loudmouths were singing KANU Tawala!
But it is for the same reason why I am exceedlingly perplexed to see him in bed with tribal chauvinists and power mongers. The Kiraitu I thought I knew was a man of integrity, modest, generous, patriotic and hard working.
Sometimes in the frenzy to score political points, we forget about the human beings who bear the names that we have turned into ogres.
Take Raila Odinga for instance. There is no one more demonized than the Langata MP on the Kenyan political scene today. I have had the opportunity of spending hours with the LDP supremo and with my usual frankness I asked him a lot of critical questions. One such occasion was on Friday, August 25, 2000 at the Lester B. Pearson airport here in Toronto. I had gone to meet him and other Kenyan politicians who were touring the United States, Canada and Switzerland (the others were current NAK MP and assistant minister Peter Kyalo Kaindi, current KANU Secretary General William Ruto, current Orange leading light Najib Balala, current CKRC Commissioner Dr. Kavetsa Adagala, unsuccessful Kisii area parliamentary canidate Professor Tumbo, current NARC foreign affairs assistant minister Orwa Ojode- Uhuru Kenyatta who was supposed to be part of the entourage did not make it).
While waiting to confirm his flight to the UK, we spent some time chit chatting, Raila and I over there at the airport. He recalled how he had grown up with my late cousin Veronica Nyamodi and the rest of the Ohanga family (mind you, Raila's dad had walloped my uncle(technically this is not accurate in Luo) Apollo Ohanga in elections in Nyanza in 1957)and so on and so forth.
I asked him point blank what had propelled him to dump his oppositional stance to seek a cooperation pact with KANU.
He told me two interesting things.
First he said, right after the announcement of the 1997 election results, there was a consensus among the main candidates( Kibaki was runner up, Raila came third, the late Wamalwa was fourth, Ngilu was fifth and the Wamweres, Anyonas, Waiyakis and Wangaris were also rans) that the opposition would challenge the results because many people were convinced that Mwai Kibaki had actually won. According to Raila- and here I am relying on my usually reliable memory, but I am human so I could be erring on a detail here and there- Kibaki got cold feet and sent feelers to the Moi camp that they were not going to challenge the results. This infuriated Raila and the NDP and they considered this a betrayal and a retreat from agreed upon positions.
Henceforth, Raila informed me (again if my memory serves me right) the NDP would strive to carve out their own independent swathe in national politics and use the incumbency of KANU to their (NDP) advantage. According to Raila, thanks to the cooperation pact, the NDP was later able to gain inroads and footholds into many areas of the country that were formerly no- go KANU zones. At the same time, according to Raila, NDP used their closeness to the government to push KANU's agenda to the LEFT and pressurized it to open up democratic space. I reminded Raila about the harassment of people like Ochuodho and Orengo and the near lynching of folks like Kibwana and Mwandawiro in Kisumu on one occasion. He really did not have an answer that was satisfactory to me. Remember this conversation was taking place BEFORE Raila, Adhu Awiti and others were incorporated into the Kenyan government as ministers and assistant ministers.
Now if you study closely the moves of Kiraitu of abandoning FORD-Kenya for the more conservative KANU clone the DP and working his way to become one of Kibaki's top lieutenants and compare it with Raila abandoning the opposition benches to become, first, a Moi cabinet minister and later KANU Secretary General (for crying out loud Agwambo Tinga Tinga!) I see no appreciable differences.
Both made OPPORTUNISTIC flip flops because their eyes were locked on political power, plain and simple. None of these two politicians have ever shied away from charges that they want to be politically powerful. I consider such politicians more credible than other people who want virtually the same thing but cloak it in pseudo altruistic mumbo jumbo.
One statement attributed to Kiraitu has always puzzled and perplexed me. One of my good Nairobi friends was telling me about two years ago that during the run up to the launch of Safina , two very interesting things happened. One was a fax from a well known law professor close to Kiraitu where the legal beagle blurted out a crude agenda that would propel Safina to power. Use X, Y and Z, with the first two being well known LUO leftwing activists to make some noise against the dictatorship and at the crucial moment dump these guys so that the real cabal would take over. At that time, the Safina core included Muite, Kiraitu, Muturi Kagano, Anyang Nyongo, Robert Shaw and Richard Leakey with Imanyara taking off in a huff when he could not secure the leadership. The second was a narrative of a drinking session where a slightly tipsy Kiraitu turned to his pal Prof. Anyang' Nyong'o and admitted to him frankly that one of the reasons why the National Planning minister never became head of Safina was that there were forces in Safina which had resolved that there was just no way a Luo would head that upstart outfit.
Why am I recycling these two anecdotes?
Simply to illustrate that even as far back as the mid 1990s people like Muite and Kiraitu had a SECRET AGENDA in place to GRAB POLITICAL POWER and that is why my former lawyer is being disingenous when he heaps all the blame on Raila Odinga as far as unbridled political ambitions are concerned.
I do have even more juicy tales to tell about Kiraitu's secret shenanigans, but my point is not to embarrass my former lawyer- like I said, I still prefer to remember him as the kindly soul who invited me for lunch to his modest South C home and worked very hard to make sure I got a Kenyan passport when the authorities were pushing me around in 1994 (thanks also to Willy Mutunga, the late George Kapten and the late George Anyona AND a mistress of a certain member of the cabinet who happened to have been my year mate at the University of Nairobi).
You know, if I was in Kenya, I would make a personal attempt to reconcile Raila Odinga and Kiraitu Murungi. I firmly believe that at the end of the day, they have, in their own ways, Kenya's interests at heart- that is when they are not held captive by other people's nefarious agendas.
I do sound rather mushy and sentimental today don't I?
Onyango Oloo
Toronto