These are not seven bullet points, and definitely not a seven-gun salute. Just seven (or maybe more) questions for Jimi Wanjigi, the man whose seven guns the government has refused to return.
1. We know you are a man of “paper”, given the cash you make from your businesses and being an agent of companies that do business with governments. However, can we also call you a paper tiger? See, you launched a blistering presidential campaign last August, promising to “fagia wote” ; that is to vote out everyone and inject new blood in the country’s leadership.
You traversed the country, speaking figures just how a man trained in business and economics can. Your figures gospel almost got bloody in Migori, remember? But, like paper fire, the flame soon died out. You were missing in action until the police paid another lengthy visit to your home akin to that other one in October 2017 when they fished out seven guns. These police and their “masters” must love your house, don’t they? But the question is: were you just a presidential candidate on paper?
2. Why, really, did the One Kenya Alliance (OKA) group leave you out in their “deed of assignment” on Wednesday? Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka said you won’t be let in until you resolve your issues with ODM. Has this created an unwanted Jimi jigsaw? Last August, you said you wanted to battle it out with the party leader Raila Odinga for the presidential ticket.
But given the events of January, where you later called him Judas Iscariot “who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed the truth and justice”, do you think you stand any chance of looking like a presidential contender with a party backing? And there was ODM secretary-general Edwin Sifuna saying last week that even if ODM gave you the ticket, the party will lose because you have “no path to victory”. Because Mr Odinga keeps saying he has one bullet left, will you stick to your guns and remain an ODM member or you will bolt out?
3. There is the small matter of the team you assembled to run your campaign. Some left plum jobs to join you, believing you were going all the way. “It is very serious. I am going for one seat and one seat only: the presidency of the republic of Kenya.” That’s what you told Citizen TV last August. But now there is nothing doing. Is your conscience disturbed that you created a couple of unemployment opportunities?
4. Can you by now agree that political marriages eat their own children? You have said before that you are the “unifier of peace”, who brought together President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto ahead of the 2013 elections and also galvanised the National Super Alliance for the 2017 polls. But as fate would have had it, none of the marriages brought the returns you wanted in the end. Are you now seeing it as one unending jig of betrayal and selfish interests?
5. Your life has been in two phases; one where you were pretty much underground and doing things behind the scenes and another where you were in front of cameras, issuing statements and firing some shots. In that reclusive phase, you were a puller of strings behind the scenes; a trusted ally of the ever-wary George Saitoti (the late); a man who birthed the idea of the standard gauge railway in 2008; who helped Kenya get funding from China for the construction of Thika Road and was an agent of companies that made the superhighway; among others. All that until the infamous raid at your place a few days to the repeat presidential election in 2017, then you were thrust into the limelight. Then you gunned for presidency, and you were being discussed in every hamlet. Speaking of Mr Saitoti, do you believe in his famous remark that there comes a time when a nation is more important than an individual?
6. The ruling on the warrant of arrest against Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, who was convicted for contempt of court for failing to release your seven guns, will be issued by the Court of Appeal on April 1. What if the warrant is lifted and he is arrested on the very day? Can we see this happening or should we just wait for what April 1 is commonly associated with?
7. The ODM secretary-general said last week that you are not running for president but pursuing a different agenda that will soon become clear. Might that “agenda” comprise backing the bottom-up economic model and its main proponent? See, you said last year that you began private garbage collection with one pick-up bought with borrowed funds then grew exponentially. That is a pedigree bottom-up story. Might you be heading there to continue unifying?
