By Dikembe
As parliament resumes next week; the first order of business will be the unconditional return of Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi to parliament.
Opiyo Wandayi, unlike Speaker JB Muturi who was never elected by anyone to sit in parliament (Muturi was rejected in Siakago) was elected by thousands of Ugunja voters. The point to be made is that the so called standing orders which make the speaker a demigod in parliament have become part of the repressive structures which keep a corrupt, incompetent and tribal regime in power.
From security laws to yesterday’s SOTNA by Pres, Uhuru; parliament has become the conveyor belt of Jubilee impunity. People like Opiyo Wandayi have nothing to lose. I have met Hon. Wandayi in very few occasions but what surprises me about him is his ‘Luoness’. The man is in no hurry to amass anything. He is in no hurry to gain some capitalistic status. You won’t find Opiyo Wandayi in Intercontinental Hotel every evening like that Uganda tax burden on Kenyans called Matsanga. You won’t find Wandayi seated with Matsanga being being entertained by Sakaja. So Opiyo Wandayi can dissent, knowing so well he has nothing to lose if the empire falls, perhaps,quite possibly, he may have everything to gain.
Let’s be clear about something; ODM is not seeking any sympathy votes from anywhere. To even think you can scare the party that stood for Mau Forest conservation and watched the heaven fall on it, and survived the ordeal, into submission by trending hashtags or staging fake TV interviews against it is wishful thinking.
Raila Odinga, our party leader, once said he has read so many obituaries written about the demise of his political life and that of the party he leads until he ended up reading the obituaries of those who were writing his and ODM obituaries!
The ODM base want to see its leaders actively defying and rebelling and resisting status quo. The mission of ODM is to fight the corrupt status quo until the quo loses its status. No party today scares this corrupt, incompetent and plundering state than ODM.
Next week; from what I’m hearing, we heard back to IEBC. Because IEBC must fall. Let me repeat something; ODM is not begging for support from any outsider. If you feel so scared, lock yourself in your cocoon.
To our two friends in CORD, let me paraphrase something George Bush once said just before he invaded Iraq: “A coalition partner must do more than just express sympathy, a coalition partner must perform,”. This is the message of ODM today. You, our coalition partners, must stop merely oozing sympathy. Unlike Bush, we won’t say you are either ‘with us’ or ‘with … them’.
To our two friends in CORD, moving forward, whether you join us or not, there are things ODM will do. And whether you agree with them or not, the other guys won’t make much difference when they attack anyway. They’ll call us hooligans but don’t forget they told you that you were nothing; that you couldn’t bring anything on the table. I’m talking about Wiper. In essence, whether you support the other side or not; they already said they can do without you.
The Wiper Leader, Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, knows this better. After shuttle diplomacy during which time he risked his life flying into and out of dangerous cities and lobbying recalcitrant world leaders to save someone from the ICC, he was told he has ‘no numbers’. He was shown the map of Ukambani and asked to differentiate the people from the shrubs and trees; then he was told the numbers were way too small…not enough to bring to the ‘negotiating table’.
When we formed CORD, you came in as equals. We formed CORD as equals. Those were the terms. When we lost the election; we maintained our word. We didn’t renegotiate the terms even though the reality called for renegotiation. We kept our agreement. That’s why despite ODM having 9 MPs for every 1 Wiper MP and 15MPs for every 1 Ford Kenya MP, we don’t control anything in both houses of parliament. You lead both houses. We didn’t make the ‘numbers’ a big deal then and haven’t made it a big deal today. See?
To continue giving Jubilee any veneer of respectability as a regime that serves all Kenyans is to be part of the very problem we are trying to solve. If ever there was a ‘nationalist covenant’, it didn’t bestow the stranglehold of this nation to one community, or two. It wasn’t based on exclusion, and yes, it wasn’t based on ‘numbers’.
The point is; ODM is going to do what ODM must do; with or without allies. If anything, we don’t need 100 MPs to hold Jubilee at ransom, just a few, with whistles. To Jubilee minions, heck, spare us your lectures! And don’t think we’ve forgotten you stole sh140 billion Eurobond.
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Kenya Airways (KQ) yesterday announced they are sacking 600 Kenyans. Six hundred, both educated and uneducated; but many of them educated. What you may not know is that before Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o convinced senate that the rot at KQ needed special attention; Jubilee continued to cover up the billions of scam siphoned out of it.
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