Saturday, February 9, 2013

Just what is in a name?


Makadara MP Gideon Kioko Mbuvi aka Mike Sonko. PHOTO/FILE
By BILLY MUIRURI bmuiruri@ke.nationmedia.com  ( email the author)

Posted  Saturday, February 9  2013 at  00:30
In Summary
  • Some politicians have had to change their names to curry favour with voters
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What is in a name? This rhetoric cliché always crops up every time someone’s name triggers a debate.
And in Kenya it cannot be gainsaid that a politician is as good as his or her name. A number of politicians have used nicknames in campaign merchandise, even though such names never appear in the ballot.
Only the officially recognised names appear in the ballot. So what would have befallen outgoing Mukurwe-ini MP Kabando wa Kabando, had he remained, Godfrey Mwangi Kariuki, his childhood name?
Maybe the former student leader at the University of Nairobi in 1993 could not have clicked in the student politics, his springboard to elective politics.
But this election year, politicians, most of them debutants, did not take nicknames for granted, especially those in Nairobi and the Mt Kenya region. They have officially adopted them so that they can appear on the ballot come March 4.
Luckily for those who went to such lengths, the people’s verdict at the recently concluded nominations favoured them. Former Makadara MP grew up as Gidion Kioko Mbuvi. But when he came to Nairobi and ventured into the matatu business his world of names changed.
He started the Mike Sonko Foundation, whose philanthropic activities endeared him to the electorate.
In 2010, he vied for the Makadara seat during a by-election. The Sonko wave spread through the Mukuru slums and Industrial Area estates like bush fire. In a surprise outcome, he beat fierce rivals former MPs Reuben Ndolo and Dick Wathika.
Last year, keen to retain the name at the ballot, he changed to Gidion Kioko Mbuvi Sonko. And the man is a serious contender for Nairobi senate on a TNA ticket. What about the furore over a Punjab University degree for one Clifford Waititu.
Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu’s degree, from India, bears the name Clifford Ndung’u Waititu. But then, his identification records show he is Ferdinand Ndung’u Waititu. When his TNA party raised issues about the authenticity of the degree and was about to knock him out of the race; it took the genius of Waititu to change his names.
In Kiambu County, the TNA senate candidate Kimani Wamatangi was a different person only a few years ago. In Kabete, the man grew up as Paul Kimani Njoroge. However, this changed after he spearheaded a water tank project in Kiambu and its environs.
Matangi is Kiswahili for tanks. The project started in 2005 before it was officially commissioned a year later.
Kimani had visited Ndeiya, a semi-arid area in Limuru, and found about 50 women in a self-help group who used to contribute some money to build water tanks as reservoirs for rain water. But in four years, they had only managed five tanks.
He sought to assist them through the Wamatangi Foundation. The water tank programme further moved into children’s homes, schools and churches.
So when the political bug bit him last year, he realised people knew him more as Wamatangi. So he changed his name to read Kimani Wamatangi. And during the TNA nominations last month, he triumphed. “The unique name worked wonders,” the candidate admitted on Friday.
A few years ago, the Kenyan corporate scene was jolted by a move to sack the managing director of the Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC). The man at the centre of the controversy was Mr Francis Mwangi, a young man, in his 30s, who many felt had performed remarkably well.
Mwangi was synonymous with the revival of KCC, an economic bedrock in central Kenya. After the sack, the man went under only to resurface during the campaigns for Murang’a County governor’s seat. Murang’a people used to refer to him as Mwangi wa Iria. Iria is Kikuyu for milk. When he learnt the name resonated well with the population, he quickly changed his name to Mwangi wa Iria.
In Meru, find Mr Kathuri Murungi, TNA’s candidate in Imenti South. The man went to school as Wilson Muthuri Murungi. But his small body gave credence to the common reference as Kathuri meaning “a small man”. But that is not the only reason he changed his name to Kathuri.
There was a loser in the 2007 elections called Cornelius Muthuri. Murungi did not like to be associated with the name and opted for the ‘small man’ tag.
It could be hard to determine the extent to which the names rescued their holders in the nominations but certainly the candidates agree it would have been a different outcome all together.
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