Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

Knowing what we know, and seeing what we see, I am baffled by the lengths that senior members of the Azimio-One Kenya Tours and Safaris will go to set their house on fire three months before the general elections, and thereby jeopardising Mr Odinga's chances of becoming The Fifth. First it was the ham-fisted wooing of Mr Musyoka, SC, away from the Kenya Kwanza wheelbarrow. You got the impression that Mr Musyoka, SC, had been mugged on his way to City Market to buy fish for the weekend. There was little in the way of finesse as he finally joined the Azimio agglomeration. And it got worse from there.

There were unpleasant accusations that none of the signatories had read the coalition agreement. There were hilarious snafus as premature whinging over Deputy President slots were mouthed in disparate barazas before lacklustre crowds. The impression that the mugging had morphed into a hostage crisis has only gained credence in recent days with the appointment of a panel to choose Mr. Odinga's running mate. The Azimio mouthpiece, a USA-based law professor, and an excitable Migori MP have done much to undermine confidence in Mr Musyoka's camp that he is, indeed, the chosen one, demanding that he shall face the same panel as other worthy candidates.

A Kitui MP, and his Ukambani cheering squad, have lambasted the panel-beating taking place in the search for a running mate. They are reinforced in their intransigence by an impeached ex-jailbird seeking gubernatorial glory in County 001. What they have done, in a weird sort of way, is to affirm how low one of Mwai Kibaki's Vice-Presidents has sunk in the political premier league. He can only trade on his glory days. He has little to show for that glory. If he isn't careful, the unfair tag of "has been" will wrap itself around his neck, albatross-like, and strangle his political career like a boa strangling a wee lamb.

I spent a few days with my very aged grandmother in Sawagongo. We ate fish and kuon. We drank copious amounts of clay-pot-chilled water (goodness, the humidity of Gem is something else). And we flirted with the heresy that the Wheelbarrow Acquisition and Distribution CBO may offer a better future because, despite it all, it has a less foot-in-the-mouth approach to things (sexist and misogynist rants of its Cosmo Chois notwithstanding) than Azimio-One Kenya Tours and Safaris.

I can understand the desperation of the Senior Counsel to be on the ballot one more time. He has. nothing to fall back on if he is left out in the cold. I can understand why his acolytes are threatening mass walkouts out of the coalition. They are only relevant if their fantasy of political supremacy is affirmed by the choice of the Senior Counsel as running mate. But politics based on desperation has little chance of persuading the voters to cast their ballots for them. It is, frankly, a little off-putting if not downright creepy. Sadly, though, the one Miguna Miguna calls the Toad of Buffalo cannot see his nose for the world. He will continue to pen increasingly ill-advised screeds. He will continue to tweet like a teenager. He is a harbinger of the drubbing that the Azimio Tours and Safaris is inviting.