Just who is this man Lumumba?

Kenya Anti Corruption Commission director PLO Lumumba takes the oath of office at Chief Justice Evan Gicheru's chambers August 6, 2010. Photo/FILE 

By TOM ODHIAMBO tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke Posted Friday, February 4 2011 at 16:01

Prof Patrick Lumumba is the man on show. He is the enviable celebrity in Kenya now.

Not those plastic one-song mtaa crotch-grabbing, trouser-sagging, big boots shouters we call musicians.

He is a celebrity, if you still believe that public property belongs to us all and should be kept safe.

But if you possess a title deed to a road reserve or school ground, Lumumba is the evil spirit cast your way.

This man is more known publicly for using “big” words and dressing captivatingly. Yet Lumumba is actually a man who has written a lot about this country.

Since he was appointed the director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Lumumba speaks less in public about issues other than corruption.

To know the philosophy and thoughts of the man known as Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba better, one should read two of his most recent books: The Searching Soul: Selected Essays & Speeches (Mvule Africa Publishers, 2009) and A Call for Hygiene in Kenyan Politics (Mvule Africa Publishers, 2008).

Both books are largely concerned with the state of Kenyan politics and politicians since the end of colonialism.

Lumumba doesn’t mince words; his tongue is acerbic, lashing at the greedy, fraudulent robber class that has circled the seat of power and forced the rest of the society to the margins.

A Call for Hygiene is Lumumba’s obituary to the December 2007 general elections. In the foreword, written by him, Lumumba notes:

“This little book is dedicated to Kenyans who yearn to participate in the political process as the main arena for influencing socio-economic and political change.

“My experience in the murky waters of Kenyan politics should serve as a warning to Kenyans of goodwill who in their quest for justice may imagine that character and good intentions are the key to political office.”

Of course these are the words of a loser; he had lost his quest to be the MP for Kamukunji during which he had discovered in during the campaigns that to win votes one needs an endless supply of cash (for bribery), strong arm tactics and hooligans on standby (to scare off opponents) and a thorough knowledge of Machiavelli’s The Prince and ....Lumumba blames the politicians and the citizenry.

The politicians for tempting the voters to sin, and the wananchi for being so gullible as to accept to “eat” what the politicians offer. Often, he appears to have forgotten a very fair cliché of politics: that it is dirty.

Realpolitik disdains the ethical niceties that Lumumba advocates in A Call for Hygiene.

The Searching Soul, on the other hand, is a collection of 36 essays redrafted from his speeches and academic papers given at conferences locally and abroad.

The topics range from democracy, justice and equity, human, women and child rights, legal, truth, the youth to corruption.

The essays reveal a depth of knowledge about Kenya, Africa and the world. Lumumba displays a keen understanding of history and a capacity to apply it to contemporary issues.

The “searching soul” of the title is Lumumba’s attempt to communicate his agony over the failure of the African society to develop after independence; an agony that can easily become an obsession and lead to a desire to appear saintly or even a saviour.

Because of this stated concern with philosophical issues, the two texts, especially The Searching Soul, tend to be quite didactic.

Lumumba seems unable to let go of the teacher in him and to assume the philosopher’s identity, which he so wishes to grasp and hold onto.

Indeed a careful listener to Lumumba’s public speeches will note his tendency to emphasise the way of truth, correctness, honesty, integrity — the good.

This belief in proffering the ‘way forward’ before or without critically examining the ills first might put off some readers.

Apart from the editorial and design errors, Lumumba’s writing reveals the mind of an individual who is attentive to details and has the capacity to acutely question many of the general assumptions by which Kenyans live.

The texts are available at Prestige Bookshop and other bookshops in the country.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. Tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke