Mr President, spare us the Sudis and Echesas in your Cabinet

The sight and sound of Kapseret Member of Parliament Oscar Sudi stuttering and stammering through his oath of office sometime last week in the National Assembly was both comical and tragic.

Comical in the sense that a man who is infamous for ridiculous political statements and inane verbal outbursts could barely read a 100-word script with the eloquence that is required of any legislator worth his salt.

At the same, it was tragic that a legislator, who otherwise postures himself as a vocal leader beyond the precincts of Parliament, suddenly lost his bombastic voice on the floor of the House – the very place where his voice should be most audible.

Apparently, the tough-talking MP also has a soft under belly which was badly exposed in that brief moment.

And as you would expect, on social media, Sudi’s oath-taking debacle quickly turned into a trending topic with the poor fellow being savagely trolled by the unforgiving netizens of Kenya.

Personally, I didn’t get the joke. Is it really funny when you realise that the messenger you’ve just sent to run a very important errand can barely express himself?

Thankfully for Sudi, Kenyan voters are a very forgiving lot. He may actually ascend to a higher political office in subsequent election cycles. Kenya is not Tanzania where incoherence has earned a few holders of public office the sack as was the case for one Assistant Minister who was summarily dismissed by the late President John Pombe Magufuli for a terrible fumble while taking his oath of office.

Which brings me to my point. Having fully been installed as the fifth President of the Republic of Kenya, Dr William Ruto’s next order of business is to unveil his Cabinet.

The sports fraternity is breathlessly waiting to see who will succeed Amina Mohamed in that very important ministerial docket, which unfortunately has in the past been occupied by very colourless office holders.

Truth be told, we in the sporting fraternity have often been treated as children of a lesser god by successive national governments.

Which explains why the Ministry of Sports has never been a key ministerial docket.

Actually, when a Cabinet Secretary is transferred, say from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Sports, as was the case for Amina Mohamed two years ago, he or she is widely perceived to have been demoted. And it often reflects on the national government’s budgetary allocation to ministries.

With such an outright disdain for sports, it’s understandable some of the characters that have in the past been appointed to the office.

There is one in particular whose only meaningful contribution was bequeathing us a strange English phrase, ‘thump chesting’. No prizes for guessing, his name is Rashid Echesa.

All said and done, who gets appointed to what ministry is President Ruto’s call to make.

It will be fair game if he dishes out a few rewards here and there to his loyal cronies, but for heaven’s sake, he should spare us the Sudis and Echesas of this world.

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