Embattled ODM Secretary General and Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna.
Last week, I tweeted that Senator Edwin Sifuna, the erstwhile ODM secretary-general, was a dead man walking. A furore erupted across social media. I was subjected to vituperative ad hominem attacks, many written in poor, ungrammatical English.
They say too little knowledge is dangerous. It became evident that many Kenyans, at least those who habitually inhabit social media, don’t understand basic English. I quietly wondered whether many of the assailants were alumni of the impugned 8-4-4 system.
Most commenters thought that I literally meant the physical decapitation of the good senator. Of course not. I had simply stated an object fact that Mr Sifuna’s political death as ODM SG was nigh. I spoke metaphorically, not literally.
Even chickens in Mr Sifuna’s native village in Bungoma knew his political life in ODM had voluntarily terminated. Why were the Senator’s supporters gagging on empty air? It’s because in Kenya, and especially in the silly season, rabid partisans don’t think critically. They emote unintelligibly. It’s better for them to let out a primordial cry than exercise their noggins.
But all this is beside the point. The larger point is that Mr Sifuna’s separation from ODM wasn’t a matter of whether, or how, but when. Mr Sifuna himself had self-deported or exiled himself from the leadership of ODM, including from the late party leader, Baba Raila Odinga. Mr Sifuna had made a conscious decision to exit ODM.
No ambiguity
I don’t know what Senator Sifuna knew about Mr Odinga’s decision on his fate. I can reveal here without equivocation that Mr Odinga had determined Mr Sifuna wasn’t long for ODM.
I want to categorically state that Mr Odinga said multiple times before very senior ODM leaders in my presence that Mr Sifuna would be removed as SG at the next NDC in Mombasa in 2025. There was no ambiguity about Baba’s statement. I owe it to history and to my pedigree as a senior scholar to accurately report to Kenyans what I heard Baba say about Mr Sifuna.
The ODM leaders who were there when Baba emphatically made this statement several times know themselves. I say this without animus or favour to anyone.
It’s in this sense that I tweeted that Mr Sifuna was a dead man walking. His fate had been sealed a long time ago by the party leader. Those who have been discussing Mr Sifuna’s fate in ODM on TV and public fora don’t know diddly squat, and those who know have been quiet.
It is important to set the record straight and debunk the false narrative that it’s the leaders in ODM, and not Mr Odinga himself, who made the fateful decision to axe Mr Sifuna as SG. To state it otherwise, Mr Sifuna’s fate in ODM was a wrap a long time ago. I know this matter has divided ODM, but let the truth set all of us free.
There are several reasons why Mr Sifuna had to go. They say that two rats cannot live in the same hole. I think the metaphor only makes sense when the two rats harbour hostile intentions towards one another.
Once Baba decided, after consulting the ODM faithful, that he would enter into a working arrangement with President William Ruto and UDA, the die was cast for refuseniks within ODM. The majority of the party and its senior leaders backed Baba’s decision.
A small faction that has historically defied Baba formed a fifth column and sought to undermine the ODM-UDA Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) from within. Although Mr Sifuna publicly read out the MOU and signed it at KICC, he proved hypocritical and duplicitous.
Mr Sifuna became the public face of the fifth columnists. Those who viscerally or out of political greed like disgraced ex-DP Rigathi Gachagua and his co-religionists in the so-called opposition, saw Mr Sifuna as a boon for their attacks on President Ruto.
Soon, Mr Sifuna and other opposition leaders started appearing together in public rallies or politicised churches to rain vitriol on the government and President Ruto. It’s, of course, their democratic right to lambast the incumbent in their quest to oust him at the next ballot. But a sitting SG of a party that’s in a working arrangement with the government cannot renounce that arrangement. That’s where personal opinion stops, and party discipline and collective responsibility kick in.
An SG of a party, much like the party leader and other senior officials, cannot repudiate lawful party decisions collectively taken, and still squat in office. Nor can senior party leaders like an SG publicly cavort with the party competitors to undermine his own party on TV, social media, and public forums.
One cannot have his cake and eat it too. The party must decapitate such an official. He is free to go and exercise his democratic rights of speech and assembly elsewhere. Nor can any tribunal force a party to work with an official it has rejected. That’s why Mr Sifuna had to go.
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Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.
