Why I’m not celebrating Miguna’s exit

MOSES KURIA Since the dramatic suspension of my fellow columnist Miguna Miguna, the Prime Minister’s advisor on coalition affairs, I have been prodded by friends, analysts and commentators to declare whether I was taking a victory lap.
This, ostensibly is as a result of the long running political combats and run-ins that I have had with Miguna over the last couple of years. Whilst for the undiscerning it may appear to be a déjà vu of sorts, beyond the din of celebrations from the long list of victims of Miguna’s reign of terror lies disturbing facts that calls for serious retrospection.
Firstly, it is imperative to note that Miguna has never acted alone. In the Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Miguna not only had a boss but also an ideological mentor. I have argued in this column before that Miguna is actually a younger version of Raila Odinga.
This largely informs why the Prime Minister has watched with glee as we lost count of the victims of Miguna’s nihilism. I recall with maximum respect the gallant fight that Miguna put up on behalf of the Prime Minister for a parliamentary system of government in the run-up to the enactment of a new constitution. On behalf of the Prime Minister, Miguna took no prisoners in the dealings with President Kibaki’s side on the management of the Grand Coalition Government (GCG).
So valuable was Miguna to his boss and ideological mentor that the Prime Minister has responded with gnawing and deafening silence to every complaint we have made on his younger version. Thanks to the new constitution that provides for dual citizenship, Miguna can now enjoy his dual Kenyan and Canadian nationalities.
This does not obliterate the undeniable fact that Miguna was holding dual citizenship illegally before 27th August, 2010. The Prime Minister did not take action on this despite my letter to him on the same, neither did he act on at least three other complaints that I publicly raised on the conduct of Miguna.
Which then begs for the question of why my brother Miguna has been shown the door now. On 30th December, 2009, Naivasha MP John Mututho and I raised the red flag on the appointment of one Gideon Ochanda and Major James Oswago to key executive positions in the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC).
Ochanda was a candidate in the ODM primaries in Bondo in 2007 while Major Oswago was a key political actor in Rarieda in 2002 and as such their appointments to IIEC were highly inappropriate.
Whereas IIEC took swift action rescinding Ochanda’s appointment, Major Oswago somehow survived. Since then, there have been frantic efforts from some quarters to ensure that Major Oswago gets an automatic transition to head the Interim Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
I have written in this column before that the aborted efforts to protect Ababu Namwamba as the chair of the Legal Affairs Committee in Parliament was a strategy to ensure Oswago’s smooth transition to the IEBC. When this failed, the clamour to discredit the IIEC commissioners was the last kitchen sink that the KPU wing of ODM could resort to. To the best of my knowledge, this was a corporate project for the KPU wing of ODM and that is why I feel totally aggrieved that when the plot back-fired, my comrade Miguna Miguna has been turned into a sacrificial lamb alone.  Shame!
The sheer sadism that has been employed to throw Miguna out of office provides, yet again, a sneak preview of how a Raila presidency would look like. One of the victims of Miguna’s political barbarism, Daniel arap Moi must have been proud to see the return of firing public servants through media announcements.
Withdrawing Miguna’s security when he was away in an ODM retreat in Naivasha and with his innocent kids at home and terrified must have been borrowed from the Gestapo tactics in East Germany during old schooling days. Firing Miguna’s administrative staff for the presumed sins of their boss must have been a script from the radical change that we were promised in 2007.
Something in my conscience tells me that it is not enough to commiserate with Comrade Miguna. You can fault Miguna for anything but not his commitment to democracy in this country.
Conventional wisdom has it that he created quite a few enemies for standing up against corruption in the Office of the Prime Minister right from the days of the maize scandal. With the suspension of Miguna, a latter day John Githongo may be in the making.
There is no denying that Miguna is an intellectual genius, one of the best legal brains in this country, but then he happens to be socially autistic that explains why he gets into trouble with so many people. But then none of us can claim to be perfect.
That is why I have no qualms offering Miguna a job at the Party of National Unity. After all, he preceded me as the Treasurer of Students Organisation of Nairobi University (SONU) by five years.
If I receive an application from Comrade Miguna that will be no more than two pages and in Times New Roman Font size 12, I may just consider it. After all, what are friends there for?
The author is the spokesman of the Party of National Unity. The views expressed herein are his own.