Up close and candid with Miguna Miguna

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Joshua Miguna Miguna. Photo/FILE 

By WAMBUA SAMMY swambua@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Monday, September 3  2012 at  01:00

IN SUMMARY

• Miguna Miguna is back in the limelight, breathing his trademark fire and generating debate as he promotes his hard-hitting book, Peeling Back the Mask. DN2 has been talking to the author

We have seen people attacking you during your book promotions, aren’t you popular with Kenyans?

The vicious and barbaric attacks on me have only been in Kisumu and Mombasa. In both places, the attacks were planned, orchestrated, and instigated by Raila Odinga’s goons. They told me so themselves.

They had been paid by Raila’s trusted assistant minister from Mombasa. The intention was to disrupt my book tour, prevent Kenyans from buying and reading my book, and to conceal the truth about corruption, nepotism and abuse of office from coming out.

Instead, the attacks have exposed Mr Odinga as an intolerant and dictatorial leader who doesn’t brook dissent. The goons hadn’t been invited to my meetings. They didn’t have to attend if they didn’t want to.

As a leader and someone who aspires to be president, Raila should have condemned those barbaric attacks unreservedly. Ironically, he has attacked me — the victim of his goons’ violent assaults — through his presidential secretariat.

Raila has full control over his supporters. They wouldn’t have attacked me if he had publicly directed them not to.

Please don’t dignify the goons by calling them “Kenyans”; they are pathetic paid goons. It is very disappointing that the media have gleefully reported the attacks as if endorsing them.

The media should have condemned them unequivocally. They should also have reported accurately on the successful events in Nakuru, Kericho, Karatina, Nyeri, and Murang’a towns, where thousands of peaceful Kenyans gave me a heroic welcome.

Why gloat over the barbaric attacks, yet deliberately conceal the images of the heroic welcomes I received in Kericho, Nyeri, and Murang’a?

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Why haven’t you taken legal action against the people who disrupted your Mombasa and Nakuru book promotions?

I was not disrupted or attacked in Nakuru. As I have said, the attacks were in Kisumu and Mombasa. Three people were drowned out as they tried to heckle me in Nakuru. The hired goons attacked me in the open in the presence of the police and the media in Kisumu and Mombasa.

The media have clips that the police and the DPP can use to convict the criminals. It is up to the police and the DPP to charge and prosecute the offenders. The media should be at the forefront of demanding that they be charged.

The attacks on me were as barbaric as those of Moi goons on Bishop Njoya and the late Prof Wangari Maathai. I will only testify as a victim of and witness to the attacks. Since when did I have the power to charge and prosecute criminal offenders?

It has been alleged that you are now friends with the PM’s detractors on the other side of the Coalition Government, that they are supporting you financially. Any truth in this?

The PM and his cohorts are peddling lies. They are desperate. So, they have manufactured political links where there are none. Nobody is funding me. Who funded Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru, which he published following his fallout with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta?

I wish somebody was funding me because I actually need money to conduct a thorough campaign against the culture and merchants of impunity. Ask those spreading such desperate lies to substantiate their claims. Isn’t Raila Odinga the coordinator and supervisor of all government functions, including the NSIS? Is he implying that I have now taken over his job as PM?

Miguna Miguna is a politician in his own right. What would Miguna Miguna the President/Senator/ MP do differently?

I am a political strategist, tactician, and actor, not a politician. I am a lawyer and a writer. I am a human rights defender. I believe that leadership without integrity is conmanship.

If Kenyans bestowed upon me any leadership responsibilities, I would discharge my duties honestly, honourably, diligently, and in a disciplined manner.

I would work very hard to uproot corruption, tribalism, and nepotism in all their vestiges. I would work hard to create employment opportunities for our youth.

Having an unemployment and underemployment rate of more than 70 per cent is a recipe for chaos. I would help instil, entrench, and promote justice for all.

Somebody said that a people get the leaders they deserve. Are you persuaded that Kenyans are a great people?

Yes and No. That statement is only partially correct. Historically, some leaders have been imposed on a people by vested foreign interests, local oligarchs, and/or by dysfunctional and weak institutional structures.

The current Kenyan leaders occupy their positions by default. Most are not qualified to lead cattle dip committees. Kenyans don’t deserve those thieving, looting, and criminal gangs dressed in suits.

What is your ideology, your world view?

I am fundamentally a humanist Pan-Africanist; one who holds dear the dream of a fully liberated, united, democratic, and prosperous Africa. At the core, I am also a social democrat. I believe that no society can thrive without social justice for all.

The dog-eared phrase that in politics there are no permanent enemies: Do you foresee any rapprochement between you and the Prime Minister?

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That’s a silly phrase. It is such phrases that have confused and compromised our people into believing that we must work with irredeemable and despicable characters — people who should be serving time in jail — merely because we need them to ascend to power.

We should never accept this cynical philosophy of “the end justifies the means”. Power cannot be sought and obtained at any price.

We must conduct our politics in a clean/ethical, honest, responsible, and democratic manner. Consequently, I don’t see any prospects of ever working with Raila Odinga again. He is too old to reorient himself and reform.

Probably fearing some sort of communal backlash, some of your relatives were reportedly uneasy about your book. Were the fears justified?

Although their fears are real, their responses are misplaced. They should be condemning the merchants of impunity, not coddling them. The people have the power to reject those purveyors of discord, violence and impunity. Nobody is above the law.

Correspondence between you and other civil servants portrays you as being rather rough around the edges and a tad materialistic… insisting on a top-of-the-range BlackBerry, for example.

I’m yet to see the correspondence you are referring to. I believe most of the documents (if at all) you have been shown are contrived and manufactured to mislead the public.

They must be very desperate. What they omitted to show you are hundreds of letters, memoranda, and briefs I wrote to the PM, demanding accountability for the tens of billions of taxpayers’ money that have been squandered and misappropriate under his watch.

Between those billions and a Sh30,000 Blackberry, what would you rather talk about? I don’t have time for childishness.

By the way, some of the people spreading such useless propaganda use more expensive phones and have squandered billions of your own money.

Unfortunately for them, I have never accepted discriminatory treatment. I demand equal pay for equal work and equal treatment. If they don’t like it — too bad.

Any honest person who knows me or has worked with me will have difficulty believing that I am materialistic. And yes, I don’t coddle incompetence, corruption, and laziness.

Are you suggesting that you would prefer a dishonest, lazy, thieving public servant to an efficient, effective, and strict one? If that’s what they call “rough around the edges”, then I am guilty as charged.

Are you Kenyan or Canadian? What’s the truth about your citizenship?

Who doesn’t know that I am a Kenyan by birth?

If you were still the PM’s adviser, what would be your counsel regarding the violence in Mombasa?

I am not the PM’s adviser at the moment. I don’t answer hypothetical questions.

Under what circumstances did you find yourself on the wrong side of that regime?

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I don’t understand your question. I was abducted at gun-point from the University of Nairobi halls of residence, detained incommunicado with four other student leaders, before being released and expelled in 1987. I subsequently fled into exile. I thought you have read my book. It’s all there.

As a matter of curiosity, who is your best friend? What does Miguna Miguna do for relaxation? Does he dance, drink beer or tea?

I don’t think you are entitled to that information. It is personal and privileged in the context of this interview (Hahaha!) I think you need to read my book.

What next after the storm kicked up by the book settles?

I didn’t know there was a storm. If there is, I hope you are referring to the resurgence of resistance and challenge to authority. We need more of it, not less. That’s the only way we can realise the gains of the new Constitution, which many of our so-called leaders only pay lip service to. I’m not retreating until our laws and the Constitution is fully implemented, respected, and upheld. We must pursue justice for all. That’s my mission.