The Senator v the Grand Mullah

This blogger frequently disagrees with Ahmednasir Abdullahi, the sharp-tongued publisher of the Nairobi Law Monthly and the author of Straight Talk in the Sunday Nation. In his weekly column, Mr Abdullahi has crossed pens with many who hold themselves out to be the conscience of  this nation including Makau Mutua, who pens a column for the rival Sunday Standard. The relationship between Mr Abdullahi and Mr Mutua in recent weeks, especially when viewed from their exchanges via Twitter, have been anything but gentlemanly.

This past Sunday, Mr Abdullahi let rip with The trouble with Kenya's 'test-tube' politicians (Sunday Nation, 23/02/14). The column was written in his usual no-nonsense style, skirting the limits of the laws of libel and slander. In it Mr Abdullahi argued that the former Prime Minister and the Deputy President, Raila Odinga and William Ruto, were consummate creators of "greenhorn politicians...[who] become[s] [an] expert[s] on all things from devolution to mineral exploration. [He] fights all enemies of the regime, real and imaginary, honestly thinking that [his] master wants him to do so. [He] then unilaterally but secretly declares [himself] defender and sycophant number one of the regime. [He] goes full circle. [He] becomes a national nuisance."

The article elicited a rather surprising response from Kipchumba Murkomen, a Senator from the Rift Valley, a region that Mr Abdullahi claims has its fair share of Deputy-President-created test-tube politicians. In what became an escalating war of words on Twitter between Mr Abdullahi and Mr Murkomen, the latter claimed that the former was targeting him using the allusion to "a broad category of politicians," as Martha Karua observed.

This blogger will not wade into whether Mr Murkomen was the target of the Grand Mullah's (as Mr Abdullahi is fondly known in some quarters) pen; but we must wonder whether his diagnosis of the current quality of politicians is due to a flaw in their selection and subsequent election. Patronage politics has defined Kenya since even before Independence. What has remained a shameful secret is that those who eventually made it into the colonial Legislative Council were frequently men considered loyal to the colonial administration. The same became the case after Independence; only the party loyalists would be selected to contest party and general elections. Eventually, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Toroitich arap Moi ensured that only those who were loyal to the president would contest the party elections and the general election.

With the return of multi-party politics, and the splintering of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy in 1991, the political party was no longer just a vehicle to presidential power; it was a vehicle to the untold wealth held by the national government. All it took for one to become fabulously wealthy, especially after 1997, was to be elected a Member of Parliament. And the keys to the kingdom were held by the Party Leader. Loyalty to the Party Leader guaranteed one a chance to battle it out with other candidates loyal to their party leaders at the general election. Whoever prevailed would get rich, but only if they did exactly as they were told by the Party Leader. The disloyal or the malcontent soon found the avenues for self-aggrandizement closing and their plaintive calls in the wilderness of political adventurism being ignored.

Mr Abdullahi is right. It is the party leaders who mould politicians in their parties. The party leaders' demands for absolute fealty, and for acts of obeisance, must have led the Grand Mullah to call them "test-tube politicians." Their acts of obeisance have compelled some of the them to engage in acts of political contortion that would break lesser men. Some have become masters of sophistry; in their mouths, black is white and night is day. Mr Murkomen should have taken the opportunity to read between the lines of Mr Abdullahi's commentary; then he should have determined that if indeed he fit the description of a test-tube politician, the wisest course of action was to pen a counter-commentary, setting out as lucidly as possible why being what he is is not a bad thing. He still has a chance to respond. Whether he will will do so in a sober manner is something this blogger awaits anxiously.