They say power abhors a vacuum. Very true. Just as true is the fact that politics despises ambiguity. The public is very fickle. During moments of catharsis, the public tends to latch on to momentary narratives.
Woe be unto the politician who doesn’t move with the flavour of the month. Cursed is also the politician who doesn’t read the political mood of their region. Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo falls in the latter category. Self-styled a “truth teller”, Ms Odhiambo now finds herself on the horns of a dilemma.
She sits her rear on the embers of her own making. Her people have told her “nyet”. We are witnessing a significant player unravel right before our eyes.
Let me peel your eyes. One rule of gravity is that the taller they are, the harder they fall. Ms Odhiambo, a cantankerous but talented public figure with an intellect, often allows hubris to get the better of her. This is a pitfall of many well-educated personas in Kenya. They are quick to punch, and often mistake those who return punches as enemies, and not opponents.
It’s the kind of navel-gazing that blinds one to objective advice. Many a Kenyan politician, or successful professional, tends to forget that they are not God’s gift to anyone else, but their families. There’s nary a need for a public figure to lord it over the average hoi polloi. Be humble.
Politicians, and Ms Odhiambo isn’t alone, enjoy the applause too much, or drink a little more Kool-Aid than they should. They tend to forget that part of the oath that says they are “servants”, not “masters” of the people.
And if they’ve been in the public eye for a long time, they develop amnesia about who’s boss – not they, but the people who gave them the pedestal. This is doubly true in poorer countries like Kenya where high officials conflate their station with some innate blessings from on high to torment the common citizen.
They confuse fuel-guzzlers, bodyguards, a seat at the front of the line, and a little money as a licence to “torture” others, or an entitlement to more social goods.
I am not saying Ms Odhiambo is guilty of all these sins, or that she’s sui generis – one of a kind. No, but that’s how the general public will view her. As someone who thinks that she is the boss, and not the people, no matter how fickle they may be. Last weekend, in the presence of President William Ruto and the ODM luminaries in Kisumu, the public gave Ms Odhiambo a hard pill to swallow.
As the saying goes, she was handed her hat by commoners. The people were trying to remind her who is boss, and who should be the follower, or the leader. As she has done on several occasions, she missed the point. She tried, as is her wont, to play boss to the people. They were having none of it, and repeatedly showed her the middle finger. She tried to talk over them. To literally subdue them into subservience.
They told her to go jump into Lake Victoria. That’s when the master of ceremonies, the unflappable Junet Mohamed, rushed to the rescue. He took the microphone to spare Ms Odhiambo more torment and humiliation. It was a bad outing for Ms Odhiambo. I don’t know how one comes back from that without genuine public atonement.
It wasn’t the first time Ms Odhiambo had endured the wrath of the ODM faithful. I fear for my sister’s electoral fortunes in the coming elections.
Ms Odhiambo’s fortunes have flagged ever since ODM’s supremo Raila Odinga left us last year. Mr Odinga was the mugumo tree to many a difficult politician in ODM.
Without him, the lot is badly exposed and unless they recalibrate by an order of many magnitudes, the 2027 elections will leave them as wreckage in its wake. Ms Odhiambo’s problem is trying to play footsie with ODM proper while winking at the Sifuna-Orengo-Babu breakaway faction.
She cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hound. Best to cast her lot and die an honourable political death. She cannot be a watermelon. There’s no fence strong enough for her to lean on. Let her fish or cut bait.
Being politically ambiguous in the current environment invites a career-ending guillotine. I don’t mean to single out Ms Odhiambo. Here, she’s just a convenient metaphor. There are many like her. Nor do I want some dimwit saying I am picking on a woman, as though women cannot take a punch – a legitimate punch.
The public arena isn’t for the faint of heart, man or woman.
Ms Odhiambo should go where her heart is calling her to. She seems to want to join the Edwin Sifuna-James Orengo-Babu Owino brigade. She should resolutely march there like the “Bad Girl” she’s branded herself, and let chips fall where they may.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York; @makaumutua.
