The Reverend Mutava Musyimi, the Member of Parliament for Gachoka is among the people to announce their intention to run for the presidency in the Kenyan elections expected later in 2012.
The man of cloth chose Nakuru as the place to announce his intention, in a rather low key affair, relative to the seat that he covets.
It is Mutava’s democratic right to vie for any office in this land. But it is a fact that many questions are bound to be asked regarding the candidacy of Mutava, at this in the history of the country.
I remember attending a press conference called by Mutava at Jumuia Place in 2002 in the sunset days of former president Moi’s rule, just before the elections in December of that year. The Mutava I saw then and the Mutava I have seen in the last couple of years are two different people. The Mutava of today is a pale shadow of the Mutava of that time.
The Mutava of that time was a thorn in the flesh of the government for his constructive criticism of the government which helped to bring it back to the straight and narrow, when the government went against the wishes of the people. He was a darling of many in the country for his relentless efforts to see to it that the government did not abuse the rights of the people, which was a regular occurrence in the country in those days.
The 80s was the period when the fight for the restoration of multiparty democracy in the country was at its peak. This culminated with a return to multiparty democracy in the early nineties. Mutava was a key player in the struggle, through his sermons in the pulpit and via the Ufungamano Initiative, which brought together activists from the church and the civil society.
It was in the 90s that we had the worst financial scandal in the country, Goldenberg. It was also in the same time that the late Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko disappeared and was later found dead. The church, of which Mutava was a member, came out forcefully to criticise the Moi government for the scandal.
With the coming into place of the Kibaki government in 2002, the church as we knew it earlier seems to have toned down its criticism of the government, even when the government has committed atrocities against its people, more or less like the Moi government.
A few examples will suffice. In 2004, government security forces raided the Standard Group offices in Nairobi, destroyed property and burnt the day’s newspapers. The Anglo Leasing financial scandal had taken place earlier in 2003. Up to this day, no one has been jailed for stealing from the tax payer.
In 2005, we saw foreigners (the Artur brothers) with dubious background being accorded the status of senior security officers because of their seeming connection with those in power. They were allowed to leave the country in mysterious circumstances and up to this day, not much is known about their real mission in the country.
There are many atrocious things that have happened in this country from the time Kibaki came into leadership but the church has not been as critical as it was in Moi’s time. This has lent credence to the accusation that some in the church leadership had a loathing for Moi because he did not come from their tribe or region.
Recently when he was asked why he has been quiet lately in the face of many misdeeds by the government, Mutava’s answer was that he has been listening and watching, trying to understand the working of parliament and serving the people of Gachoka.
This is hard to buy because even when he was criticizing the Moi government because of its perceived excesses, he was still serving people through his position at the National Council of Churches of Kenya. So being busy is not a good enough reason for keeping quiet. What has changed now to make him soften his stand on issues affecting the people of this nation?
I find it hard for Mutava to convince me that he is serious about his candidacy because up to now, he has not told us which party ticket he is going to use to run for presidency. A candidate is as good as the party he intends to run on for the presidency. If his decision is really considered the way he has been portraying it, why is it that his advisors have not identified a party to help him sell his agenda to Kenyans? By keeping Kenyans second-guessing on this critical issue, he only makes us suspect that he as is as indecisive as the Kenyan politicians who have gone ahead of him, who only wait to join the bandwagon at the last opportunity.
I would have expected Mutava to act differently from the Kenyan politicians who are opportunists and only make decisions based on what they stand to gain from an issue. Take the case of paying taxes by members of parliament, only two or three have been paying their taxes in the current parliament. But the other day when the taxman came calling, the first to clear their dues with the taxman were those who are aspiring for run for the presidency in 2012. Was their gesture genuine or were they just doing it for the cameras and to create a good impression in the eyes of Kenyans? Mutava was one of them.
When he was asked about this change of heart, he said that he has agonized over the issue for a long time. Does it take one close to four years to realize that he needs to pay his taxes when even civil servants, many of whom earn peanuts in comparison to the legislators, have been paying their taxes for donkey years? Just recently when Kenyans were voting for the new constitution, Mutava was opposed to the enactment of the new constitution. He had a right to vote against, but the question now is, is that the same constitution that he is going to swear allegiance to, yet he had opposed it vehemently? What is his conscience telling him? Is he going to fight to change sections of the constitution that are not pleasant to him or he is going to respect the wishes of Kenyans, who voted overwhelmingly for it, and leave the document intact?
Mutava has a lot of convincing to do, not only among ordinary Kenyans but also among those who belong to the church, where he obviously expects to reap a lot of votes from. My advice to Mutava is that he should search his heart and come up with clear answers to these questions before he hopes to win the hearts of Kenyans as he did in his earlier days in political activism. I hope he has smart spin doctors who will help him to navigate the murky and treacherous route that is Kenyan politics in the coming days. I pray for him because the decision he has made will either make or break him, and only two things will happen at the end of the day; he will either live to regret his decision or rejoice for the rest of his life!
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