MIGUNA’S BEHAVIOUR IS A PLAGUE TO RAILAI’S 2012 BID.

BY FWAMBA NC FWAMBA

Miguna Miguna’s recent article in the star of Tuesday April 26^th 2011 and his previous conduct on a national TV when he was invited for debate with Prof Peter Kagwanja exposes a man full of sycophancy that in the name of trying to impress his master is hell bent on engaging in personal attacks without substance.

I find it a serious disgrace that the taxpayer’s money is spent to cater for salaries of such people. I am yet to find out what exactly the value of Miguna’s position is in government and in effect to ordinary Kenyans.

In his article he used over two thousand words trying to belittle Prof.Kagwanja’s intellectual and academic credentials. It is not forgotten that his perfection in abusing people is what defines what Miguna’s personal credentials are. He is no different from those Kanu sycophants who wanted Karl Marx arrested since some supposed opponents of the Moi regime were said to subscribe to the supposedly corrupt teachings of Karl Marx. He is one person who is not open to criticism of his master or himself. Any criticism of Raila will always be met with abuses, mockery and ridicule from the self righteous Miguna Miguna who has in all his articles personalised the second liberation struggle to look like it was his invention and personal masterpiece. While he keeps on boasting of his reform credentials equating himself to the likes of James Orengo, Raila Odinga and playing superior to the likes of   Wafula Buke, it is yet to be established whether Miguna used the second liberation struggle for the sake of Kenyans. If Miguna is not an opportunist, then the meaning of the word must have changed.

His self imposed exile in Canada in the wake of dissent against Moi within the student fraternity during the Mwakenya days speaks volumes about the real character of this man. Majority of Kenyans opted to remain here and face Moi head on to push for political reforms, the time during which Miguna and his ilk were enjoying life abroad and continuing with their education while their comrades in Kenya were rotting in prison .Tito Adungosi and many others who stood against Moi never made it to come out of prison alive. To Miguna, anyone who does not agree with him is wrong and anti reforms; that is an accusation he has levelled against everyone including Tito Adungosi who is not even alive to defend himself. Even after the enactment of the new constitution he is still obsessed with the past and has not appreciated that Kenya’s hope lies in the future and not the past.

After staying in ‘exile’ for over 20 years, Miguna decided to come back but has remained in utopia ever since. Going through Miguna’s writings gives one an impression of him living 20 years behind the Kenyan political calendar. He seems to have forgotten that Kenya moved on while he was away. Many things happened then for us to be where we are and Miguna should give Kenyans a break and stop hallucinating that his being in self imposed exile is what gave Kenyans the new constitution. If he doesn’t know his role in this then I have to remind him that he is an opportunist who stayed away for self preservation and pursuit of his own happiness when Moi was butchering people only to come back after the war has been won to claim victory in a war which he never participated. He has become one of the major beneficiaries of the blood of our brothers and sisters who died in the struggle; occupying a senior government position for which he never fought. His attack on the people who endured Moi’s repressive regime is a sign of inherent feeling of guilt that he doesn’t want to publicly admit. His supposed participation in the second liberation struggle is a make believe created by him to justify his occupancy of the office he holds because his inner feelings are real as opposed to the hogwash he writes for the consumption of young Kenyans who are not privy to the true history of this country. Miguna is a man desperate to create a false space for himself in the history of this country which in real sense is either non existent or very minimal if any. He has lied to the people until he even believes his own lies. His behaviour is alike to that of the character Ivan Alexandrovich Hlestakov in Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector  who after realising that he had been mistaken for an Inspector General, lies to the town’s leadership that he is actually one to an extend of believing his own lies.

Miguna’s arrogance and belligerent behaviour in itself explains something about his character. It’s a strategy of  trying to conceal his personal weaknesses and as such he will go to any extend of maligning people and intimidating others who may potentially expose him in character and real abilities as opposed to the false image of himself that he tries to create.

To avoid reasoning and deviate from the subject of criticism, Miguna chooses to provoke the critics of Raila into personal fights that involve sharp razored war of words. That he has succeeded in making himself a Raila shield and spear at the same time. During Moi’s time, that was the work of sycophants. It sounds so unprogressive in Kenya today that sycophants are now officially employed and live on the taxpayers money.Miguna’s responsibilities sound more relevant at the ODM headquarters than at the Prime Minister’s office where non partisan interests are supposed to be pursued as opposed to the kind of assignments Miguna appears to busy himself with at the Prime Minister’s office. Another option is that such a person should earn a salary from Raila’s pocket and not from the Kenyan tax payer. In these difficult economic times, it will be helpful that when the two principals consider reducing the size of the cabinet; such obsolete positions like that of Miguna whose job description and mandate appears to be mainly abusing Raila critics through the media, should be done away with.

On his attack on Prof Kagwanja he appears more focussed on justifying his fat pay check and government privileges that he enjoys as a state officer than articulating the truth. He refuses to acknowledge the fact that he and his ODM bandwagon supported the enactment of the new constitution because they had no choice. He refuses to acknowledge that it was Prof.Kagwanja’s team that triumphed at Naivasha and the ODM group only supported the constitution to avoid embarrassment at the referendum. It is a known fact that the ODM group wanted federalism to be entrenched in the constitution while the PNU team wanted the two tier system that was eventually adopted. The ODM team wanted a position of an executive Prime Minister as opposed to the PNU group which wanted one centre of power.Miguna is still suffering from the frustration of their failed attempt to create two centres of power in the constitution.

Miguna also wants us to believe that his vote made us succeed at the referendum. During the referendum campaigns, the ODM group under the leadership of Miguna and others; were more interested in trying to force the success of the referendum to look like a result of Raila’s sole efforts while the PNU team under Prof. Kagwanja was more interested in ensuring that we got enough votes to not only win but win convincingly. Its through Prof.Kagwanja’s strong lobbying skills that we were able to convert the whole of central province which had earlier been prejudiced against the constitution because of the conduct of the likes of Miguna. I am right to say that without PNU and Prof. Kagwanja, the new constitution would have become a cropper; something Miguna being an alien to truth and a compatriot of falsehoods will obviously deny.

In his article he appears like a man trying to get an escape route from that failure by instead pointing at those who succeeded against his team as failures. Even with their failing political mathemaics, Miguna still insists that his master is poised for political victory come 2012.It reminds me of those pupils in the village primary schools who took advantage of their illiterate parents to lie about their academic performance at school. When such pupils performed poorly and tailed in class they lied to their parents that they beat everyone in class. A chicken was then slaughtered to celebrate the academic ‘achievements’ of someone who had managed to be number forty out of forty pupils in class. The pupil took advantage of the illiteracy of his parents to get a gift that he least deserved. Those are the tactics Miguna has always used in his attack articles; expecting that Kenyans will not realise his cheap tricks.

While trying to help the Prime Minister by advising him on ‘coalition matters’, Miguna’s sycophancy , rather than win, can only scare away Raila’s potential voters when people contemplate a government where someone of his temperament will be the one calling the shots. He is a bully good enough to win the Prime Minister more enemies than friends. In this time and age Kenyans have no love lost between them and political sycophants and opportunists of the Miguna type.

Fwamba NC Fwamba

+254721779445

National Convenor

Kenya Young Voters Alliance

A WELL ORGANISED SECRETARIAT WILL BOOST THE YES VOTE

On Friday, the Synovate group released a poll indicating that the yes side had lost seven points since the last opinion poll was conducted. Being part and parcel of the national yes campaign team, I can authoritatively point out the reasons as to why we have had our side fluctuate from 64 percent approval in the previous poll to the recently announced 57 percent. There is no doubt that both the president and the prime minister have shown their undying support of the document. This is possibly the reason why majority of Kenyans are in support of the document. The political goodwill from the president and the prime minister might be one of the main factors that will help us in mobilizing the vote that will eventually have us succeed in what has been so elusive in the last two decades. However there are a number of loopholes in the campaign that if they are addressed urgently, Kenyans will get an opportunity to know the importance of passing the proposed constitution overwhelmingly. The make or break point for the yes campaign lies heavily on the role that will be played by the yes campaign secretariat before and during the referendum campaigns. It’s easy too to attribute the maintained lead to a section of the leadership of the secretariat and still attribute the fluctuation to a section of the secretariat leadership. The secretariat leadership has raised the issue of lack of funds whenever confronted with a question on why the campaigns are being done haphazardly. It’s however unjustifiable since both the PNU side and the ODM side of the coalition are facing the same predicament in respect to lack of availability of funds. Lack of funds is not a justification for being disorganized. With these challenges, the ODM side of the secretariat appears to have stronger leadership organized, well structured and ready for the campaigns, while the PNU side seems to lack leadership at the secretariat. unlike ms Janet Ong’era who is hands on and in charge of running affairs procedurally, Prof Peter Kagwanja who happens to lead the PNU side seems to understand more on political theory than organizing real political exercises like the referendum we are heading towards. there is no doubt that most of the people appointed to the secretariat are competent enough to execute the duties concerning the referendum campaigns, but under Prof Kagwanja’s leadership, it will be hard to maximize the potential of reaching out to the; yes’ prospective voters .Prof kagwanja is an accomplished scholar with great research works to his name. However his current task seems to be greater than or out of the scope of his understanding and thus it might be difficult for him to deliver. The PNU side of the secretariat appears disorderly and Prof Kagwanja himself is rarely in the office. One outcome of such disorganization came when the ODM side organized a youth press conference where PNU affiliate parties were poorly represented. It emerged that Prof Kagwanja was either unaware or had failed to get in touch with PNU affiliate youth leaders for the function. The few of us who attended the press conference were ambushed at the last minute and by the time we were joining the press conference, we had no idea of what the statement contained. It’s alleged that Prof Kagwanja is now silently planning to plant people of his own choice to head different departments, ignoring the names of political party leaders seconded by respective party leaderships of respective PNU affiliate parties. It’s no secret that it will be foolhardy to campaign without putting the youth vote a serious priority. It’s obvious that the youth vote will decide the margin by which the proposed constitution will be approved by Kenyans. Having been out of the country for a while, Prof Kagwanja has been absent from the Kenyan political scene and may not be in a good position to tap the right political manpower for the purpose of the referendum. The referendum campaign needs to be run by someone who is well acquainted with the Kenyan political affairs in the recent past and in present. The ODM side appeared to have noted this fact in advance and that is why they appointed someone who apart from other qualities understands Kenyan politics. In most cases Prof Kagwanja is always having meetings out of the office or too busy that very significant matters are either left unattended to or handled by his ODM co-director. There is no doubt that soon, there will be complains, as it has been before that ODM is running away with the yes campaign and yet the truth of the matter is that we have a politically incompetent person leading the PNU side of the secretariat. I am optimistic that YES will win, but in a referendum like the august 4th one, it’s important to marshal enough support from the majority of Kenyans as targeted by the political leadership of the yes campaign. The 10 million vote target is attainable, but the target might be elusive if the secretariat directorship on the PNU side is not changed.

Fwamba NC Fwamba The writer is NEC member of New Ford Kenya, New Ford Kenya is a PNU affiliate party in the grand coalition government The ideas expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the party position

Hon. Sambili’s Move to Reinstate Umuro Wario at Kenya’s Youth Fund Should Be Lauded

The government’s decision to reinstate Mr. Umuro Wario to continue serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund should be highly lauded. It’s a point of victory for public officers who risk their jobs by committing themselves to fight corruption. Kenya’s biggest problem with the war against corruption has always been having the corrupt have their day whenever they fight back. This has happened to so many competent people before. A number of committed and hardworking officers have often lost their jobs whenever they showed determination to fight graft. A few years back it was confirmed that in Kenya, corruption fights back. It happened to Goldenberg whistle blower David Munyakei who lost his job and died in agony after he revealed how Kenyans had lost billions of shillings through the Goldenberg scandal. The same nature of machinations worked so hard to remove true anti corruption crusaders from transparency international. It was such kind of behind the scene political games by some board members that two very competent CEO’s Mwalimu Mati and Gladwell Otieno were consecutively removed from TI Kenya. Transparency International is just one example among many where officers committed to sincerity end up losing their jobs because of the greed and immorality of some of the board members of those institutions. The minister in charge must be lauded for taking a bold action and making the truth carry its day by re appointing Mr. Wario. The minister has shown that if we all work for the truth, the just will always get justice too. The initial sacking of Mr. Wario was like condemning those who fight corruption within the institutions where they work. This is because the ground of dismissal was based on the fact that he didn’t cooperate in the approval of some questionable deals pushed by the board. He must be lauded for standing strong in the interest of Kenyan youth when he refused to approve a ‘loan’ of ksh.300million to a Canadian NGO. Its noticeable that some politically connected board members wanted to use their political influence to blackmail the CEO into approving projects that mattered to their own selfish interests and not in the interest of the Kenyan youth. It’s important that the minister was able to rescind her own earlier move of sacking the YEDF CEO after finding out the truth. As the minister appoints new board members it’s important to ensure that new faces are put on the board to make the YEDF operate without any external coercion from various political interests as it has been before. The minister should now move to ensure that the board is fully reconstituted to include people who will work in the interest of the Kenyan youth and not those who will end up arm-twisting the CEO to give’ loans’ to foreign NGOs. A new board I believe will come up with a new way of implementing the youth projects and also oversee the funding of the youth groups by merit and not through political manipulations. Wario is one of the competent young people who are emerging in providing leadership in different sectors of our economy and it’s wrong for individuals to use tribalism or any other form of bigotry to sabotage such talents. He is also is famed for having rolled out the audit of the Kenya’s free primary education when he worked for the ministry of education. I really wish that other ministers and government officials emulate the youth and sports minister Prof. Hellen Sambili and stand and support the truth always whenever circumstances of this nature arise. Through this, we shall achieve a lot in our war against nepotism and all other forms of corruption. It must be fought from all corners and sacking public officers who help fight it is not one of the methods of ridding our society of graft. FWAMBA NC FWAMBA NAIROBI +254721779445