British poet and actor Robert Montgomery famously opined that you should “enjoy the applause but never quite believe it.” I am afraid this simple yet profound advice has been lost on many a Kenyan politician. The latest victims of this amnesia are the impeached ex-Deputy President and DCP’s Rigathi Gachagua and the overly exuberant Nairobi senator Edwin Sifuna. Both men suffer a seemingly congenital inability for self-awareness.
Mr Sifuna, like Mr Gachagua before him, seems to have drunk too much of his own Kool-Aid. It’s the nature of politics that its incumbents often believe their own immortality. That’s why they tend to bestride the political landscape with the razzmatazz of a peacock. Both men are birds of a feather.
We live in the Age of Hysteria. Social media has made sure of that fact. We also live in the Age of Mediocrity. A combination of both epochs is a deadly stew. Imagine putting stupid together with mediocre. What you get is a snarling, illiterate, and uninformed demographic.
People read a headline, or see a Tik Tok and believe that they know it all. It would even be kind to say that too little knowledge is generous where there’s none at all.
In last week’s column, I asked whether Gen Z phenom Kasmuel McOure was a replica of the late political colossus Tom Mboya. What I got was a bunch of commenters foaming at the mouth and tilting at the windmills like one Don Quixote.
That’s what the Ages of Hysteria and Mediocrity have sired. Today I have decided to throw good money after bad. The heck with it. I uncork my view that Mr Sifuna is Mr Gachagua’s identical twin from another mother. One is a facsimile of the other.
Let’s remember that all politics in a democracy has a DNA. To that extent we cannot condemn people for being average and middling politicians like Mr Sifuna and Mr Gachagua. That’s par for the course. That DNA speaks of principle of compromise, self-interest, and occasional hypocrisy. These qualities may not get one into heaven, but they might make for a successful political career. I don’t condemn the two gentlemen at the stake of human fallibility. No – it for far worse sins.
First, I can crucify both Mr Sifuna and Mr Gachagua on the cross of hubris. Like Mr Gachagua, Mr Sifuna is a one-term legislator. Both were wet behind the ears when they burst on to the national limelight. Mr Gachagua was a little known MP from Mathira. Mr Sifuna was a pedestrian political journeyman who was picked from obscurity by Baba to be a placeholder for the Secretary General of ODM.
Mr Sifuna, like Mr Gachagua, found his mojo by being a one trick pony. That trick was being against President William Ruto and at the same time being for nothing. As far as I can tell, Mr Sifuna doesn’t have a philosophy of government beyond shouting “Ruto Must Go.”
As we have seen, Mr Gachagua too doesn’t know what he would do with government were it like manna from heaven to fall on his lap. The only thing he’s sure of is protecting the interests of the Mountain. Beyond that, the disgraced former DP doesn’t have the foggiest idea wherefore government exists. You can tell zealots on the political podium. Both men are vituperative and vitriolic. They’ve that glint in their eyes that tells you they think of themselves as being some messiah.
They are righteous and virtuous and everyone associated with the Ruto Administration is sinful and vicious. This is the stuff of which dictators are made. I don’t mind them being self-assured, but cloaking themselves with sacred robes is where I draw the line.
Second, a politico is allowed the occasional flip-flop. That’s because in politics purity doesn’t get you far. Think of all the alliances Mr Odinga made in his storied and unparalleled political career. Yet he remains Kenya’s greatest democrat because he never sacrificed principle even when he worked with implacable foes.
Baba always found a way to advance the ball of democracy. The man lacked hubris unlike his younger charges. He was a statesman and not a village elder like Mr Gachagua.
Where Mr Gachagua fulminated against those on the side opposite when he was DP, today he says they are all saints. Like him, Mr Sifuna has completely embraced Mr Gachagua where yesterday he vilified him as an irredeemable tribal bigot.
Finally, imagine a country led by Mr Gachagua who fancies himself as Junior Jesus and Mr Sifuna who is a holier-than-thou messiah. He is a man who is completely untested, who spews undigested half-truths, and whose claim to fame is the slogan “Mimi Ndio Sifuna.” Surely, is that a qualification for even the most meager of national leadership positions? Most disturbingly, Mr Sifuna seems eager to become Mr Gachagua’s political concubine. I am sorry but that’s a bridge too far.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. On X: @makaumutua
