Outspoken rebel who has become a huge thorn in ODM flesh

By Billy Muiruri bmuiruri@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Friday, March 25 2011 at 22:00

In Summary

• Duale has so irritated party leaders that he is marked for expulsion and possible loss of his Dujis seat

One hot morning in April 1988, a baby-faced waria – a euphemism for Somali – student was set to join the National Youth Service (NYS) in Gilgil.

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With three principal passes from Moi Forces Academy in Nairobi, he qualified to join university but the NYS induction was mandatory.

Two weeks later, young Aden Bare Duale was ready to forfeit his place at university “if the only way to join it was a further three-and-a-half months at the NYS”.

He actually left Gilgil but it was only after a doctor at the Rift Valley General Hospital wrote an exaggerated report about his ulcers that he was finally exempted from the training.

“I did not see the point of all those military drills when I wanted to study law. I loathed following a person’s orders without question,” Duale, now the MP for Dujis, says.

That is just a glimpse of how Duale dislikes authoritarianism.

Among fellow Members of Parliament, opinion on him is split depending on which age bracket one is in.

For the older politicians, he is an excitable first-term MP who speaks too much and needs a little experience to slow him down. To his party leader and officials, he is an irritant who will talk with careless abandon on things that most members will rather not touch.

To fellow backbenchers, he is a voluble, controversial and independent-minded politician without the burden of loyalty to party chiefs.

To capture the seat, he defied former Chief of General Staff Mohamud Mohamed, hitherto a key factor in North Eastern politics for more than three decades.

The General preferred former district commissioner Ali Korane for the seat, which covers part of Garissa Town, the headquarters of the arid region.

Incidentally, both Korane and Duale are married to the General’s daughters.

Duale first faced Korane in the ODM nominations where he beat him. He beat him again at the ballot, much to the chagrin of the General.

Today, he is the “odd man out” in the ODM army of rebels and is accused of rocking the party from within. He is the only MP outside the Rift Valley who has the audacity to publicly criticise party leader Raila Odinga.

And he has become too much of a thorn in the party’s flesh that he is marked for expulsion and possible loss of his seat.

“The only people I owe anything are my constituents. I cannot toe a line, which I do not believe in,” he says.

Opinion on his rebellion in the larger Garissa is split.

Ibrahim Warabow, a businessman, thinks Duale is wrong as he did not seek his constituents’ authority to shift allegiance.

“We gave him the seat through ODM because he told us it was good. In the same vein, he should have asked us for direction if he later found the party was bad.”

However, Hajir Dahiye, a business rival from neighbouring Lagdera says Duale’s independence is a rare trait in North Eastern where leaders have to be sycophants to remain afloat.

“I think he has read the mood of the region well. We are charting another political path in 2012,” Dahiye says.

So who is this small man who has captured the limelight in the largest political party in the country?

Duale was born in Balambala in Garissa in 1969 in a family of eight. He attended Boys Town Primary, a mission school, after his mother Hawa Kosar, a small-scale businesswoman, moved the family and left the father to herd cattle back home.

“Having one meal per day was like a rule. My mother struggled to feed all of us but urged us never to be dependent on anyone for food,” says Duale, suggesting where his independence originated.

He had always wanted to be a politician and at Garissa High School, he headed the debating club and was dormitory captain, a post he would also hold at Moi Forces Academy in 1987.

He was offered a place at Moi University, but failed to make it into the law class because of the quota system. He was forced to study economics and history but there was no way Duale would be a teacher.

When he was posted to Sankuri Secondary School in 1992, he did not last two terms.

Regarded by friends as “a man in a hurry to finish things” Duale agrees he does not like spending time on enterprises that do not bring returns.

He worked as a clerical officer at the Garissa Provincial Commissioner’s office for only six months before he decided the pay was too low.

“I joined the family business because there was more money,” he says.

It is this experience that groomed Duale into a shrewd businessman with substantial wealth.

Blessed with a nose for money and a perfectionist attitude where he goes for what he wants at full throttle, Duale owns Medina Chemicals, a firm that supplies veterinary products in North Eastern, Somalia, Djibouti and South Sudan.

When not in Parliament or at Medina Chemicals, he runs a large cattle ranch at the Coast with other members of the Livestock Traders and Marketing Society of Kenya. He was the brains behind this organisation in 1997, a move that endeared him to pastoralists for helping them open up their market.

In fact, he owes a large part of his political clout to the organisation, which is credited with lobbying for the revival of the Kenya Meat Commission and opening up exports, including of live animals.

A man who is strictly at home by 6.30pm every day, Duale is known in the Muslim fraternity as a deeply religious family man.

“I never do business after six. I leave the evenings for my wife and children,” says the father of five boys.

Saturday Nation spoke to the Dujis MP.

You were very active campaigning for ODM and Raila Odinga. Why is he a bad man now?

I have realised he deceived us during the elections. None of the things he promised North Eastern have been addressed. He does not keep promises. That’s why people in the Rift Valley are also angry with him. He also does not entertain divergent views. When you support him, he is very good, but when you ask questions, he rallies his troops to attack you.

What did the Prime Minister promise?

First, he did not honour the Memorandum of Understanding we had with him as Muslims. Then the issue of discrimination over passports and identity cards. Drilling of boreholes and tarmacking of roads are yet to be touched. He also promised us more health facilities. What irks us most is that all these projects fall under ODM ministers.

Some of your colleagues say you are opposing Mr Odinga because he did not appoint you to Cabinet?

I was elected MP and Cabinet is the prerogative of the President. The Prime Minister had limited options for his list, only that he chose people who cannot help him politically.

What if the party succeeds in expelling you and you lose your seat?

I will urge anyone who thinks this is possible to read the Political Parties Act and the new constitution properly. But I am ready to face the electorate again and I know I will win comfortably. Again, how can a party whip expel a vice-chairman?

You are a major proponent of deferral of the ICC process. Why?

The Hague issue has been politicised and abused. It is meant to lock out some presidential hopefuls from the 2012 race. It is also an aspect of neo-colonialism. Why is the US keen on it, yet they are not members? It is a pity that a Kenyan should ever be tried at The Hague.

What have you done for your people at the local level?

I have worked with the government and various NGOs on projects like the Garissa water and sewerage plant, the Garissa power project and I support more than 400 students through a bursary. We have begun to see road works in the county.

What happens in the run-up to 2012?

I will definitely be out of ODM because I cannot worship a personality. I have joined forces with leaders calling for generational change.