Why Miguna Miguna is irreplaceable on Raila team

 

By OTIENO OTIENO
Posted  Saturday, August 6  2011 at  18:10

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If you follow the English soccer premier league, you might have noticed a few striking similarities with Kenyan politics.

Like Kenyan politics, the English game is rough and intense. It worships aggression and athleticism and punishes wit in equal measure.

Ambitious clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea go for the pragmatic coach like Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho who in turn signs up a hard-tackling thoroughbred bull like Wayne Rooney or Didier Drogba for the attack role.

For their part, romanticists like Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger have to endure years of trophy drought and depression from having to keep their key players in the treatment room rather than on the pitch for much of the season.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga must be watching too much Arsenal. For what else would explain his decision to release Mr Miguna Miguna from his team on Thursday!

Granted, elements of the snobbish elite — the Carey Francis-era Alliance-educated types — might find Mr Miguna’s abrasive style revolting.

They may argue that the Prime Minister should not surround himself with people who don’t make him look presidential.

But Kenyan politics is not a game of golf. Its brutish nature makes it almost suicidal not to rally enough Migunas to your side or hold tightly onto the one you have going into a tough presidential election battle.

It doesn’t look wise either to face up to a wounded opponent like Mr William Ruto or Mr Uhuru Kenyatta with a battalion of safe-playing careerists and paper tigers.

As political attack dogs go, they don’t come any better than Mr Miguna. Fiercely loyal and passionate, he brings sharp intelligence to a job dominated by sycophants — which makes him such a rare talent.

A box-to-box player of the Kenyan political game, he has often dazzled his fans with the way he has made light work of PNU strongman Moses Kuria’s sliding tackles in rearguard action and then strolled higher up the field to nutmeg Prof Peter Kagwanja in a TV debate.

For now, the PM and his armchair advisers could choose to listen to the cheering social media crowd and think they made the right decision after all.
But it is a decision they might yet live to regret. Double M is simply irreplaceable.

Mr Jakoyo Midiwo, the Gem MP, also takes no prisoners and might fancy his chances. He is also family.

But I’m afraid he isn’t Mr Miguna’s intellectual equal.

jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com