Ever since Mr. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta stepped up to inherit his late father’s flywhisk and accept the leadership challenge of Kenya’s independence party (Kanu), his life changed. Whether it was for the better or not seems increasingly irrelevant to his followers. On the other hand, Mzee Daniel Kapkorios Toroitich arap Moi has an uncanny way of surprising and intimidating his political students. All the senior politicians in Kenya safe for Mr Odinga, perhaps, have had some form of tutelage under the former herdsboy from Sacho. Having walked the Kenyan political landscape from 1955 when he joined the Legco at the behest of some AIC-leaning Nandi elders (after the disappointment with Legislators Ole Tameno and arap Chemalan), Mzee Moi has not left anything to chance. Welding into a big-man wielding a big rungu and walking with massive footsteps, the giant figure has helped imbue his erstwhile enemies with awe and admiration which cowed them to submission. If any of us has had the privilege of shaking Mzee Moi’s massive hand, then you bear witness to the grip and length of his fingers that almost tickle you! Matters are not helped by myths and talk that his red eyes and apparently blank stare seem to perform some invisible laser-type surgery on the heart and mind of whoever it falls on. The old man is an Orkoiyot in some sense.
It is not without reason therefore, that Mr. Kenyatta was brow-beaten back to Mzee Moi’s thought process and management style of Kanu. That is why the left-handed and youthful politician from Central Kenya decided to ditch the Raila-led rollercoaster that has become ODM-K. I wasn’t surprised, then, when this morning I read that Mr. Kenyatta skipped the presentation of nomination documents to the ODM-K secretariat. What this means is that, without effort, Mzee Moi drew a spanner in the works of ODM-K and threw the juggernaut into a directionless spin unless the leaders find a rhythm fast enough and intercept the self-destruction that is sure to provoke a nyama choma parley between Mzee Moi, Mzee Moody and possibly Mzee Mwai. This land of M wazees!
So much for the prelude, what does Mr. Kenyatta’s failure to submit his papers mean for the Kanu members and especially the Kalenjin community who form the bedrock of the party’s following? Does this mean that Mr. Kenyatta will run for President in what is Mzee Moi’s unpolluted Kanu? Does unpolluted Kanu have a conspiracy to gift Mzee Kibaki a second term and a guarantee for Mr. Kenyatta to succeed him after that? Does Mzee Moi intend to reward Mzee Kibaki for something that you and I don’t know? More so in the light of the fact there was no love lost between the two immediately after the latter’s electoral victory. It is a poorly guarded secret that in Mzee Moi’s long-term strategy, he wants one member of his wealthy clan as a tenant of house on the hill. How he intends to let his anointed clansman take the grand march to Statehouse, however, is something he keeps tightly rolled up in his sleeves.
Should the Kalenjin ditch Kanu and embrace ODM-K as individual members? To put it in another way, should the Kalenjin hang on the coat-tails of Mr. Kenyatta and grovel at the feet of the retired President and former student of Kapsabet High School? Does the pull of Mr. Ruto on the one hand, Mr. Kenyatta on the other and the self-styled Total Man on the other leave the Kalenjin as a fragmented community with little consequence in Kenya’s electoral process? For obvious reasons, a dismembered Kalenjin vote is a gift for Mzee Kibaki’s second election victory. What this victory means for Mzee Moi is not easy for me to figure out. However, let’s remember that Mr. Kenyatta’s backyard of Central Province is safely perched in another party and not Kanu. What Mr. Kenyatta is gambling on is Mzee Moi’s ‘delivery’ of the Rift-Valley (read Kalenjin) vote. Should the Kalenjin allow an ‘outsider’ with little value to add to our total vote to dictate how and where we cast our vote? Should we allow Mr. Kenyatta to herd us to an ineffectual Kanu candidacy, divide the opposition, gift Mzee Kibaki his final term in Statehouse and later desert us to embrace and lead the ‘forgiving’ and ‘grateful’ birds of his feathers (Central Kenya people) to Statehouse? Mundu wa nyumba, remember. These are hard questions to ponder. While it may be easy to dismiss Mzee Moi’s influence among the youth, two things struck me the other day. One is the apparent complacency on the part of a large part of the Kalenjin youth which has left a good number without either or both an ID and a voters’ card! Two is the seemingly lethargic attitude of the voters. Call it voter-fatigue or apathy, which means quite a number of the young fellows are disillusioned and are likely not to care about voting at all. How will these two aspects impact on the current regime’s stay in power? What does this mean for the Kalenjin on 01 Jan 2008?
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