In an op-ed column on September 29 titled, 'Political eulogy of Musalia Mudavadi', I concluded, after an objective analysis, that Mudavadi was for all practical purposes and intent politically dead.
The reasons why I reached this conclusion include the fact that in all the years Mudavadi served as minister, he is only remembered in connection with the Nairobi cemetery scandal in which he was implicated in a corrupt deal.
In the deal, the Nairobi City Council paid a whopping Sh300 million for land worth only Sh24 million. There's no service with distinction or accomplishment worth noting that Mudavadi made when he served as minister.
Neither is there any service with distinction in Mudavadi’s having served the shortest as our country’s Vice President—a dubious record by itself.
In 2002, Mudavadi allowed himself to be a part of a Project Uhuru where then President Daniel Arap Moi attempted to shove down our throats an Uhuru presidency.
The 2002 Uhuru project was not only devastatingly defeated, Mudavadi himself lost his Sabatia seat. Yet, when Raila salvaged Mudavadi from the dead and made him part of the ODM Pentagon that did very well politically in 2007 and later elevated him to serve as Deputy Prime Minister, Mudavadi saw it fit to leave the comfort of ODM and seek greener pastures elsewhere.
As many of us aptly noted at the time, Mudavadi was unbelievably making yet another major political blunder he would live to regret. No one thought that would come to pass as quickly as it has happened.
Having totally failed to catch fire even in his own backyard, Mudavadi could not even form his own party to launch his presidential ambitions but instead opted to join a bought and paid for outfit called UDF, that is fully under the control of other interests beside Mudavadi or his community for that matter.
The failure to catch fire having persisted, Mudavadi found himself being quickly rendered politically irrelevant as has been expected by some, unless he made some desperate deal with anyone equally desperate or with their own conniving plans.
That turned out to be Uhuru and his bosom buddy William Ruto. The trio then quickly formed the so-called Jubilee alliance in which Uhuru and Mudavadi entered into a then secret but now openly known MOU in which Uhuru was to step down in favour of Mudavadi as the flag-bearer of the Jubilee coalition.
By joining ICC suspects Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto and entering into an MOU with Uhuru, Mudavadi confirms three things, depending on how one looks at it:
First, that he is a politically naïve son of Abaluhya. This is because he was so easily cajoled into joining an alliance that was going nowhere on the one hand and entering into an agreement with someone who could not have possibly sustained it in the long run considering all the fundamentals of Kenyan politics, especially given where both of them come from.
Second, Mudavadi’s reaction when Uhuru’s rescinded their MOU confirms that Mudavadi is a weak, indecisive politician, if one at all.
Were he not, he could have immediately turned the reneging act to his advantage but on one hand demanding that Uhuru honours the agreement or on the other building on the betrayal by denouncing Uhuru and the Jubilee coalition to mount his own campaign.
A strong and decisive politician would have known how to build his own platform based on the same circumstances.He is neither strong nor decisive, thus the reason he remains in the same quagmire; a weak, indecisive leader who must wait for others to make decisions for him or merely follow them without much muscle of his own.
Third, how Mudavadi has responded to this latest saga confirms that he is a disingenuous politician contrary to the image he has tried to project. He comes out as a politian who has no principles to drive whatever decisions he makes.
When he bolted from ODM, the reason he gave was that the party was "undemocratic” and “dictatorial” because it refused to allow delegates to decide who the party’s flag-bearer would be.
When the Jubilee alliance he so willingly joined made it known that delegates would have to decide who the alliance’s flag bearer would be, Mudavadi demanded that he be handed the flagship on a silver platter.
That is not a contradiction of himself; it is full proof that he is disingenuous, unprincipled or both. Mudavadi has confirmed he is all that and more and thus makes a compelling case that he cannot and should not be given the high honour and privilege of serving as our country’s leader, much less any position of national prominence.
He would have been served better learning under the master of matters Kenyan politics and taking over at the conclusion of his term as president, which would have been a foregone conclusion by now but for Mudavadi’s historic blunders.
More than anything, Mudavadi's latest blunder of naively joining ICC suspects Uhuru and Ruto and the aftermath confirms that Mudavadi is for all practical purposes and intent politically dead. He may as well look into other ventures in life.
Samuel Omwenga is an investment consultant and blogger in the US.
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