Monday, April 9, 2012

RAILA AND RUTO: WHAT CAUSED THE SPLIT?



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‘If someone goes round saying they hate you, do you invite that person to be best man or best maid at your wedding and expect them to bless and support you as you set out on your journey into the future?’
The removal of Mvita MP Najib Balala from a position where he was representing a party he didn’t believe in was hardly surprising, was it?
Why would a party leader who has spent decades fighting for multi-party democracy suddenly change his spots to support someone who very clearly has neither concept of the party as the matrix of our political establishment, nor belief in the particular political party to which he belongs?
If parties are to have any meaning – and let us pray that the lives and efforts of all those who have lived and suffered and died for multi-partyism were not in vain – then that meaning lies in parties’ ideologies and policies and manifestoes, and in their members’ loyalty to those ideals and to a common strategy for achieving them. Where else in the world would you be able to go round maligning and denouncing the party you belong to, and its leader, and then expect still to be part of it – and not only part of it but representing it in the Cabinet? How do you represent what you don’t agree with?
If someone goes round saying they hate you, do you invite that person to be best man or best maid at your wedding and expect them to bless and support you as you set out on your journey into the future?
Balala in response to his sacking was like a broken record. He had nothing new to say, merely parroting hackneyed, non-specific, improbable, propagandist drivel against Raila Odinga. Contrary to his claims, Balala’s sacking had nothing to do with internal dissent. The clue here is in the word ‘internal’. Let Balala tell us which internal discussions he had with the ODM party leader and on which points of principle. Let him tell us the arguments put forward by each side and the areas where they disagreed.
It’s all humbug. Balala has never had such a discussion in his life. His dissent has not been internal but very much external, and very calculatedly so. He has associated with the enemies of his party, denounced the party leader on non-existent grounds, incited other party members to leave ODM, even offered to fix them up with some alternative shenzi briefcase arrangement, and finally announced that he would be forming another party to take him to the presidency. (And that’s democracy for you. At least, it’s democracy as far as Balala and most other political leaders seem to understand it. You declare yourself ‘nominated’ without the benefit of any constitutional nomination exercise and then muster your supporters to intimidate the unconverted. That’s progress. Oh. No. Wait a minute. It’s not progress. It’s exactly what Kanu did from the 1960s to the 1990s.)
Let’s get real here. These shenanigans have been allowed to go on for too long. It is long overdue that people like Balala – people with nothing but contempt for political reform and political responsibility and progress – are being called to account. Regrettably, we still lack credible national gatekeepers who are themselves committed to political accountability – because so far, we appear to have no rules that govern behaviour among political party members.
And most of the so-called younger generation of leaders don’t understand party affiliation. What a disappointment they have proved, when older leaders, and even leaders of the past, are and were more enlightened. We see it most clearly with Uhuru Kenyatta, who last week responded enthusiastically to calls from his supporters that he just name his party, and they would support him, wherever and whatever. Such parties are not worthy of the name. They are merely conveniences. There is no question of commitment to a party philosophy – “Just give us a name so we use it to get to a position of power!”
Perhaps it is because this younger crop has never fought for anything in their lives – merely being in the right place at the right time to achieve elevation through clinging to someone else’s coattails. This is certainly true of Balala, who has never struggled at the grassroots. He became mayor of Mombasa in 1997 after being nominated a councillor, he clung to the Narc wave to get elected to parliament in 2002, and ditto to the ODM wave in 2007. It’s called opportunism. Balala has never really fought for anything. Well, he’s certainly going to get the opportunity during the coming elections.
It is equally true of Kenyatta, who couldn’t make it to parliament in 1997 even in his father’s old constituency, then got nominated to parliament by President Daniel arap Moi in 2001, then became Moi’s project (and failed in his presidential bid) in 2002, finally got himself elected to parliament that year and has since evolved as the project of President Mwai Kibaki and others of his tribesmen.
William Ruto is no different. Ruto also has the outstanding distinction of never having seen a payslip in his entire life until he got to parliament. He made millions through YK92, spent the next five years doing land deals, won the Eldoret North seat under Moi’s patronage in 1997, threw in his lot with losing presidential candidate Kenyatta in 2002, then hitched his wagon to Raila Odinga’s star in 2007 when he saw that Odinga was unstoppable in Rift Valley Province, as elsewhere.
Ruto has spread the myth that he brought Rift Valley to Raila Odinga in 2007. In the ODM 2007 presidential nomination results, Ruto not only came third behind Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi, but he also got fewer votes from Rift Valley delegates than either of them. So much for that myth. It is nothing short of nonsense. Odinga got 2,656 votes. Mudavadi got 391. Ruto got a miserable 368, more than seven times fewer than Odinga. Neither Mudavadi nor Ruto complained that it was a fix – because they knew darn well it wasn’t. In the previous general election, 2002, Mudavadi had not even managed to keep his parliamentary seat. Both he and Ruto knew that, this time, they had got to where they were because of the name ‘Raila Odinga’.
Rift Valley voters fall into many ethnic blocs, some of them loosely lumped together as ‘Kalenjin’ (a word and concept that did not exist until the 1950s). And the ‘Kalenjin’ are by no means a homogeneous body of people. They comprise the Elgeyo, the Endorois, Kipsigis, Marakwet, Nandi, Pokot, Sabaot, Terik, Tugen, Sengwer and Sebei. These communities do not speak with one voice. In fact, some hardly speak to each other. Some actively dislike one another and have frequently engaged in warfare.
Then there are the other substantial, non-‘Kalenjin’, communities represented in Rift Valley – Turkana, Samburu, Somali, Kisii, Luhya, Luo, Maasai, Kikuyu.
Many among these who voted for Odinga in 2007 certainly did not do so because of Ruto. On the contrary, they voted in large numbers for Odinga at the 2007 ODM presidential nomination as a deliberate choice against Ruto as a leader.
But to ensure that everyone felt comfortable after the exercise, and no one was left feeling marginalised, Odinga gathered all who had stood for presidential nomination – Mudavadi, Ruto, Balala, Joseph Nyagah and himself, five people – and called them the ‘Pentagon’. He announced this in his victory speech.
None of the other four had much popular support but Odinga’s approach has always been grounded in being inclusive and encouraging to his colleagues – and that meant also accommodating Kitui Central MP Charity Ngilu when she wanted to join in, making a Pentagon of six.
Ruto was no supporter of Odinga even then, but he knew he had no option – and it was the Rift Valley community that left him with no option. They had made it clear that Odinga was their candidate – just as, when the election came, the voters in a total of six of Kenya’s eight provinces made clear that Odinga was their candidate. This was certainly not because they wanted William Ruto.
Indeed, Ruto has never been able to influence voters. He failed to influence them to vote for Kenyatta in 2002, and he failed again in the ‘No’ constitutional referendum campaign of 2010. His standing among voters in current opinion polls confirms this, hovering around a dismal eight per cent. In fact, apart from his time in YK92, when he had money to buy anyone, Ruto has never done well – except when he has been on the same side as Raila Odinga. Without Odinga, Ruto has always been a loser.
Many of those who didn’t vote for Ruto on past occasions would never vote for him in future, either. His claim to be the undisputed Rift Valley leader is merely that – a claim. Because Ruto is loud, he is heard. His influence might extend to part of the North Rift but not much further. And repeating a lie does not, contrary to what Ruto would like to believe, make it true. If it were true, busloads of people would not have had to be ferried into Rift Valley towns for recent ‘prayer’ meetings. There is no way that his G7 partners are unaware of this fact.
People like Ruto will always be surrounded by a certain caucus, particularly a caucus of other self-interested leaders – but voters are another matter altogether. Ruto talks big but he can’t deliver. His forte lies in untruths, snide remarks and propaganda. But depend on him for voters at your peril. Ruto already has a major problem with the Kipsigis, who comprise about half the ‘Kalenjin’ bloc. People of the South Rift justifiably feel Ruto is contemptuous of them and that he is more than ready to try to interfere, in his usual dictatorial manner, with their democratic choices. Recently, Kipsigis emissaries sent out feelers indicating their support for ODM. And that will not be the end of such reactions within the often fractious ‘Kalenjin’ brotherhood.
Many other Rift Valley people have already protested that Ruto is wrongly claiming their support for his dictatorial leadership. And if they won’t even vote for Ruto himself, why would they instead vote for anyone else Ruto told them to support? This should be a sobering thought for anyone imagining Ruto can ever be a kingmaker. He never has been. Far from his making Raila Odinga in 2007, Raila Odinga, on the contrary, made him. And that fact eats away at William Ruto – to the extent that he has had to manufacture dissent with Odinga, whom he then accuses of forcing him out. It is all too pathetically transparent.
Ruto’s whining began when Odinga shortlisted – to represent ODM in the 2008 negotiations with PNU under former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s chairmanship – Sally Kosgei (who knew and had good rapport with Annan), Henry Kosgey (ODM’s chairman) and Kipkalya Kones (pillar of the ODM 2007 campaign among the Kipsigis, which, as noted, is by far the most populous of the ‘Kalenjin’ communities).
Ruto stamped his foot and made a big fuss, saying HE should be the one. When he didn’t get his way, he began to shout that the ‘Kalenjins’ had always been short-changed. (I don’t know quite what he thinks happened for 24 years under Moi.) To quieten him down (like giving the naughty boy in class a job) Odinga decided to include him. The team that was finally named, initially supposed to be three people, was Kosgei, Mudavadi, James Orengo and ….. Ruto. That kept him busy for a while.
The next grouse came when Odinga distributed the 20 ministerial portfolios he was allowed under the National Accord, and Ruto petulantly complained that Rift Valley didn’t get enough. Nairobi, Eastern Province, and North-Eastern Province each got one portfolio (regional development, co-operatives and arid lands respectively), while Coast Province got two (tourism and East African Community). Western Province got three (local government, planning and fisheries) and Nyanza got five (lands, medical services, public service, immigration and public works).
And which province got the lion’s share? Yep, you’ve guessed it. Rift Valley, with seven portfolios (heritage, agriculture, roads, industrialisation, higher education, youth and sports). Ruto barely drew breath before going on to cause a lot of tension in ODM that eventually resulted in the party being forced to create two deputy leader posts to accommodate him. He got his way once again. But his moaning and complaining that Odinga short-changed Rift Valley has never ceased. Is it justified? I leave you with the facts and figures and you can decide for yourself.
Ruto’s next bellyache in 2008 concerned Rift Valley youths who had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in post-election violence. He said that Odinga was now contentedly sitting in government and didn’t care about those youths. Actually, youths had also been arrested in Nyanza, Western, Coast and Nairobi. But Ruto had no interest in them. Indeed, Ruto was not interested in the release of any youth anywhere. He was only interested in using the issue as a weapon against Odinga.
It was Odinga who raised the matter in the Cabinet. He said he was alarmed that many youths had been unduly held. The Cabinet directed the attorney-general to bring a list of those charged and those on remand, then directed that youths held without charge be released immediately. Far from Odinga being the cause of the youths’ problems, it was his intervention that saved them. But don’t expect that fact to prevent Ruto distorting it to suit his purpose.
The next issue Ruto decided to exploit was the evacuation and reforestation of the Mau Forest, which is nationally important as Kenya’s main water tower. By 2009, when the Mau’s deforestation had reached alarming proportions, the problem was already well known. The Ndung’u Commission report of June 2004 had detailed a mind-boggling litany of illegal allocations of land under the Moi and Jomo Kenyatta governments – all done through political patronage for personal gain.
The Ndung’u report said that all allocations of forest land that had been made contrary to the provisions of the Forests Act and the Government Lands Act should be cancelled. It said all the titles thus acquired should be revoked. It said the forests should be repossessed and restored to their original purpose.
And 2009 was not the first time there had been attempts to remove people from the Mau Forest. Moi had tried to remove them in 1997, using administration police. In 2005, Kibaki and the then internal security minister, John Michuki, sent in more administration police, together with GSU personnel. They burnt homes and beat people up mercilessly while forcefully evicting them.
But 2007 was an election year and the people were told they could return. Once again, it was political patronage for personal gain – and no one gave a damn about the devastating effect this might have on the country as a whole. Come 2009, and Odinga, acting on a unanimous (including Ruto) Cabinet decision, convened a conference to which all Mau Forest stakeholders were invited, including all the Mau area MPs and the ministers for land, environment, forestry, regional development, agriculture and water, along with civil society representatives and the media. The participants sat in the KICC amphitheatre and spent a day discussing how to rescue the Mau Forest.
Everyone had a chance to speak their mind, and the meeting resolved that a task force be set up to survey the Mau environment and report on the extent of the damage and the logistics needed to reverse the trend and regenerate the forest. The task force included local leaders nominated by their communities – Maasai, Ogiek, Kipsigis – as well as large-scale farmers from the area and the ministries of forests and agriculture. It was chaired by the University of Nairobi’s Professor Fred Owino, a forestry specialist with more than 25 years’ experience facilitating dialogue on national forest programmes and partnership negotiations across 16 African countries.
The task force was given six months to complete its work. Towards the end of this period, the PM was petitioned by a number of MPs who said they had not yet been interviewed. The PM extended the life of the task force by two months.
The task force report showed how the 500,000 hectares of the Mau Forest had over the years been invaded and encroached upon. The real damage had begun in 1992. (Surprise, surprise, it was an election year.) In 1997, there was a surge in excisions. (What do you know, another election year.) And guess when it happened next? Right on the money – 2002, another election year. Each time, people’s votes had shamelessly been bought through land allocations in the Mau Forest, progressively destroying a lifeline vital to all Kenyans.
The Mau complex consists of several forested areas – including Mau East, Mau West, Mau South and Maasai Mau. Group ranches in Maasai Mau border the forest. These had gradually extended their boundaries and grown into the forest. Some of those claiming to live on group ranches were actually living on forest land. Other areas had been excised and the ground cleared but there was as yet no settlement, while yet others were heavily inhabited. Forestry minister Dr Noah Wekesa presented the task force report to the Cabinet. It recommended a five-phase restoration programme.
In Phase 1, the government would take back unsettled land and begin replanting trees.
Phase 2 dealt with Mau West, which still had forest but also settlement without titles. The report recommended that the settlers be asked to quit.
Phase 3 covered fully settled areas that needed to be repossessed, and the report recommended compensating these settlers with alternative land or cash in lieu.
Phase 4 covered the so-called group ranches, which were populated mainly by Kipsigis people. The report recommended a survey to determine the actual ranch boundaries. And then Phase 5 would deal with Mau East. The Cabinet unanimously (including Ruto) approved the report and all its recommendations. It was then tabled in parliament (with Ruto and all the Mau-local MPs present). It was approved by the House. The secretariat to spearhead implementation was gazetted and established. The Mau reclamation would be an operation headed by Wekesa and the forestry ministry. And because there were several other agencies involved, the Prime Minister’s office would act in its usual role of co-ordinator.
Phase 1 of the recommended action was implemented, and then Wekesa (not Odinga) issued a gazette notice giving settlers time to quit the area referred to in Phase 2. Quite a number of them, who had no titles, began to move. It was at this point that the noise started. Not from the settlers. No. It was Ruto and pals who decided to take advantage of the situation to push their own political agenda. They went to the area and incited title-less settlers in Phase 2 not to leave until they had been paid compensation.
These were the same leaders who in Cabinet and parliament had approved the task force and unanimously endorsed its recommendations. Now they saw a way of irresponsibly messing up the process to advance Ruto’s agenda against Odinga. Some business people, particularly Kikuyu business people, were encouraged to say their kiosks had been looted, and that this had forced them to run away to the camps where those previously displaced during the 2007-8 post-election violence were living.
Ruto and the other leaders behind the forest agitation encouraged these settlers to go to the camps and wait for land, along with the IDPs. They told them, ‘You voted for Raila – this is how he is repaying you. This is how he is inflicting pain and suffering on our people.’ The agitators ferried families to makeshift camps, called in the media, and blamed the “inhuman” exercise on Odinga. A compliant media went along with it, regrettably too lazy to research the facts, or too inept, or too partisan to point out this was a necessary and collective Cabinet decision to which Ruto was party and which was actually being implemented by Wekesa.
And driving all this was the same William Ruto from whose Eldoret North constituency and nearby Kuresoi tens of thousands of people had been displaced in the 2007-8 post-election violence. Ruto has never said a word in their defence, nor offered them so much as a blade of grass from his own extensive land holdings. On the contrary, he apparently decided to acquire for himself 100 acres of one unfortunate displaced person’s land.
On that score, Ruto has recently offered the astonishing excuse that “no one was living there”. The last time this excuse was used was about 100 years ago, when colonial settlers voiced precisely the same sentiment as they casually took over land wherever they felt like it and regardless of whose land it was. Who expected to hear of such a callous attitude in modern-day Kenya?
In 2010, seeking a solution to the problem of the Mau Phase 2 settlers, Odinga recommended that they be treated like other landless Kenyans, and that the ministry of lands provide them with some land for settlement. It was at this point that Ruto conspired with his friends in the Treasury to have the funds for that compassionate exercise withheld, so that he could continue to blame people’s suffering on Odinga. It was not until early June 2011, nearly a year later, that the government finally released the money – shs. 1bn to buy land for those forced to quit the Mau Forest.
In the intervening period, Ruto had a field day demonising Odinga. But the net result of his dirty-tricks campaign was that the Mau Phase 2 evictees were heartlessly subjected to long and difficult months under canvas, as they waited for then finance minister Kenyatta to stop dragging his feet and release the money for their settlement.
If anyone was “inhuman” here, it was certainly not Odinga but, rather, someone who has no compunction whatsoever about using people for his own ends. Ruto was only interested in playing political games and dragging out the evictees’ suffering to try and gain a political advantage over Odinga. He had no care for the pain of the evictees. And yet this is one of the matters that Ruto, with a straight and self-righteous face, refers to as his “differences in principle” with Odinga.
Then, of course, there is the ICC issue. “I am paying the price for having supported Raila in the last elections and eventually being turned into a sacrificial lamb,” Ruto is quoted as saying. How touching. And how false.
In late 2008, after the Kriegler and Waki reports on the 2007 general election were submitted, ODM sat down as a party with its national executive council and parliamentary group to discuss the matter, eventually deciding to suggest that a local tribunal be established to try those suspected of being instrumental in post-election violence. The party issued a statement to this effect.
Ruto was not present at that meeting, being away in The Netherlands, allegedly negotiating a fertiliser deal. But as soon as he arrived at Nairobi airport, he told the press that he was opposed to the establishment of a local tribunal. He said such a tribunal would end up trying only the small fry, while letting the big fish go scot-free. Ruto then teamed up with Kenyatta to make a career out of opposing the tribunal idea, and the two of them ‘lobbied’ (to put it politely) hard among MPs to oppose the parliamentary motion that sought to establish a local tribunal independent of the judiciary.
In the meantime, Odinga, Kibaki and then justice minister Mutula Kilonzo tried their best to persuade their parliamentary colleagues to support a local tribunal.
When it came to the vote, Ruto, Kenyatta and their pals voted against the local tribunal and carried the day. They appeared to imagine that the matter of justice would thus be delayed (Ruto even stating at one point that it would take 99 years for the Hague cases to be heard) until they were in government themselves, whereupon they would presumably ensure non-compliance with the Hague and the matter would go the same way as so many other scandals in our history.
After parliament rejected the local tribunal, Annan arrived and categorically stated that The Hague was not a good idea. He said he would give parliamentarians another six months (beyond the original deadline of the end of 2008) to rethink. Failing a change of attitude, he would have no choice but to hand over to the ICC the sealed envelope of perpetrators’ names given to him by Justice Philip Waki. Annan then held on to the envelope from January to June 2009. Kilonzo spearheaded a second attempt to have parliament agree to form a local tribunal. His efforts were shot down by Ruto and Kenyatta in Cabinet.
A third attempt was made in parliament by Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara. This was also shot down. At every stage of this process, Ruto and Kenyatta strongly opposed the local tribunal, while Odinga, Kibaki, Kilonzo, Imanyara and several others continued to support it. In the end, Ruto and Kenyatta succeeded in killing completely the idea of a local tribunal, and Annan was left with no option but reluctantly to hand over the sealed Waki envelope to ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Even then, Ocampo himself volunteered that he did not have to prosecute – if only Kenyans could get their act together. Minister for internal security Professor George Saitoti led a team consisting of Kilonzo, the then attorney-general Amos Wako and lands minister and shadow attorney-general Orengo to the ICC, where they told Ocampo they needed more time. Ocampo gave them another four months.
But opposition led by Ruto and Kenyatta was still so strong that Saitoti’s team could achieve nothing. Finally, Ocampo gave up, went to the pre-trial chamber and sought permission to begin his investigations. This was granted in March 2010. The ICC began its work. OnDecember 15 that year, Ocampo named the six suspects he considered had the biggest responsibility for the crimes committed. And then, suddenly, out of the blue, it was Raila Odinga who was the author of the whole thing! He just wants us out of the way, said Ruto and Kenyatta, so that he can win the election.
What? You say he supported a local tribunal? Ah, forget about that! It’s clear that he gave the names to Ocampo! (This didn’t quite explain why Odinga would include his own party chairman on the list, but anyway, details, details.) He is the devil incarnate!
What? You say the Waki envelope went straight from Waki to Annan and then, still sealed, from Annan to Ocampo? Ah, forget about that too! Raila chose the names in that envelope!
Oh dear. I suppose this means that Waki, Annan, Ocampo, Trendafilova, maybe the UN, definitely the entire ICC, the British government, probably the entire European Union, not to forget Obama, of course – the whole lot must have been corrupted by Raila Odinga and are now in on the deal. Boy, is that man powerful or what!
Unfortunately for Ruto and co, they have discovered that reality eventually bites back, and evidently it bites even more fiercely than Michuki’s rattled snake.
Kalenjin representation. Detained youth. Mau Forest. ICC. Ruto’s perpetual whining and griping about Raila Odinga covers issues where it is patently obvious that Odinga played only statutory and above-board roles, while at the same time doing his best to accommodate all Ruto’s demands.
Ruto’s complaints are completely insubstantial and disappear like puffs of smoke when subjected to any kind of scrutiny. And yet these are the issues he refers to as his “disagreements in principle” with Raila Odinga. Ask Ruto to explain exactly what “principles” he is talking about, and you might wait a long time for an answer. We can talk about lack of principles when Ruto maligns the party that sponsored him to parliament, is hostile to his party leader, and goes all out to form an alternative party without having the guts or principle to resign from a party he “ditched long ago”.
Traversing the country spouting dangerous, fabricated nonsense that pits Kenyan against Kenyan and can only do harm has nothing to do with “democratically expressing divergent views”, as Ruto so disingenuously likes to put it. It has to do with a frighteningly cold and calculating disconnect from the reality of the threat of future mayhem in Kenya. That is what is being stoked. Already the authorities are sounding the alarm bells, as they made plain earlier this week.
Ruto has been like a dog with a bone over this matter of Raila Odinga. For the past four years, we’ve watched as he keeps burying it in the dirt and then digging it up and chewing on it again and then burying it again and then digging it up again. There’s something ancient and primitive in a dog’s DNA that makes it do this compulsively, over and over again. I don’t know what to say about Ruto. There are plenty of haters out there who won’t like this truth and will prefer to avoid the issues and clog the blogs with mindless hate-speech and obscenities. All I can say is, this country needs to make informed choices based on facts.
Perhaps some of these facts might also help so-called political commentators such as Mutahi Ngunyi, who responded to the Balala sacking by calling Odinga a “Machiavellian” who “cannibalises” people. What shallow, ill-informed tosh! Shame on you, Mutahi. All it takes is a little bit of research. But that, of course, depends on the will to do it and not being otherwise compromised, I suppose. If anyone doesn’t want the facts, it’s their prerogative to ignore them. But the truth remains constant. And at least this way, if the truth is laid bare and it still all goes wrong, no one will ever have any excuse for coming back to lament, “Why wasn’t I told?”
The writer is a freelance journalist

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