MIGUNA’S BEHAVIOUR DOES NOT BEFIT A PERSON OF HIS CALIBRE.

BY FWAMBA NC FWAMBA ................................................................................. Miguna Miguna’s recent article in the star dated April 26th 2011 and his previous conduct on a national TV when he was invited for debate with Prof Peter Kagwanja exposes a man full of sycophancy that in the name of trying to impress his master is hell bent on engaging in personal attacks without substance. I find it a serious disgrace that the taxpayer’s money is spent to cater for salaries of such people. I am yet to find out what exactly the value of Miguna’s position is in government and in effect to ordinary Kenyans. In his article he used over two thousand words trying to belittle Prof.Kagwanja’s intellectual and academic credentials. It is not forgotten that his perfection in abusing people is what defines what Miguna’s personal credentials are. He is no different from those Kanu sycophants who wanted Karl Marx arrested since some supposed opponents of the Moi regime were said to subscribe to the supposedly corrupt teachings of Karl Marx. He is one person who is not open to criticism of his master or himself. Any criticism of Raila will always be met with abuses, mockery and ridicule from the self righteous Miguna Miguna who has in all his articles personalised the second liberation struggle to look like it was his invention and personal masterpiece. While he keeps on boasting of his reform credentials equating himself to the likes of James Orengo, Raila Odinga and playing superior to the likes of Wafula Buke, it is yet to be established whether Miguna used the second liberation struggle for the sake of Kenyans. If Miguna is not an opportunist, then the meaning of the word must have changed. His self imposed exile in Canada in the wake of dissent against Moi within the student fraternity during the Mwakenya days speaks volumes about the real character of this man. Majority of Kenyans opted to remain here and face Moi head on to push for political reforms, the time during which Miguna and his ilk were enjoying life abroad and continuing with their education while their comrades in Kenya were rotting in prison .Tito Adungosi and many others who stood against Moi never made it to come out of prison alive. To Miguna, anyone who does not agree with him is wrong and anti reforms; that is an accusation he has levelled against everyone including Tito Adungosi who is not even alive to defend himself. Even after the enactment of the new constitution he is still obsessed with the past and has not appreciated that Kenya’s hope lies in the future and not the past. After staying in ‘exile’ for over 20 years, Miguna decided to come back but has remained in utopia ever since. Going through Miguna’s writings gives one an impression of him living 20 years behind the Kenyan political calendar. He seems to have forgotten that Kenya moved on while he was away. Many things happened then for us to be where we are and Miguna should give Kenyans a break and stop hallucinating that his being in self imposed exile is what gave Kenyans the new constitution. If he doesn’t know his role in this then I have to remind him that he is an opportunist who stayed away for self preservation and pursuit of his own happiness when Moi was butchering people only to come back after the war has been won to claim victory in a war which he never participated. He has become one of the major beneficiaries of the blood of our brothers and sisters who died in the struggle; occupying a senior government position for which he never fought. His attack on the people who endured Moi’s repressive regime is a sign of inherent feeling of guilt that he doesn’t want to publicly admit. His supposed participation in the second liberation struggle is a make believe created by him to justify his occupancy of the office he holds because his inner feelings are real as opposed to the hogwash he writes for the consumption of young Kenyans who are not privy to the true history of this country. Miguna is a man desperate to create a false space for himself in the history of this country which in real sense is either non existent or very minimal if any. He has lied to the people until he even believes his own lies. His behaviour is alike to that of the character Ivan Alexandrovich Hlestakov in Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector who after realising that he had been mistaken for an Inspector General, lies to the town’s leadership that he is actually one to an extend of believing his own lies. Miguna’s arrogance and belligerent behaviour in itself explains something about his character. It’s a strategy of trying to conceal his personal weaknesses and as such he will go to any extend of maligning people and intimidating others who may potentially expose him in character and real abilities as opposed to the false image of himself that he tries to create. To avoid reasoning and deviate from the subject of criticism, Miguna chooses to provoke the critics of Raila into personal fights that involve sharp razored war of words. That he has succeeded in making himself a Raila shield and spear at the same time. During Moi’s time, that was the work of sycophants. It sounds so unprogressive in Kenya today that sycophants are now officially employed and live on the taxpayers money.Miguna’s responsibilities sound more relevant at the ODM headquarters than at the Prime Minister’s office where non partisan interests are supposed to be pursued as opposed to the kind of assignments Miguna appears to busy himself with at the Prime Minister’s office. Another option is that such a person should earn a salary from Raila’s pocket and not from the Kenyan tax payer. In these difficult economic times, it will be helpful that when the two principals consider reducing the size of the cabinet; such obsolete positions like that of Miguna whose job description and mandate appears to be mainly abusing Raila critics through the media, should be done away with. On his attack on Prof Kagwanja he appears more focussed on justifying his fat pay check and government privileges that he enjoys as a state officer than articulating the truth. He refuses to acknowledge the fact that he and his ODM bandwagon supported the enactment of the new constitution because they had no choice. He refuses to acknowledge that it was Prof.Kagwanja’s team that triumphed at Naivasha and the ODM group only supported the constitution to avoid embarrassment at the referendum. It is a known fact that the ODM group wanted federalism to be entrenched in the constitution while the PNU team wanted the two tier system that was eventually adopted. The ODM team wanted a position of an executive Prime Minister as opposed to the PNU group which wanted one centre of power.Miguna is still suffering from the frustration of their failed attempt to create two centres of power in the constitution. Miguna also wants us to believe that his vote made us succeed at the referendum. During the referendum campaigns, the ODM group under the leadership of Miguna and others; were more interested in trying to force the success of the referendum to look like a result of Raila’s sole efforts while the PNU team under Prof. Kagwanja was more interested in ensuring that we got enough votes to not only win but win convincingly. Its through Prof.Kagwanja’s strong lobbying skills that we were able to convert the whole of central province which had earlier been prejudiced against the constitution because of the conduct of the likes of Miguna. I am right to say that without PNU and Prof. Kagwanja, the new constitution would have become a cropper; something Miguna being an alien to truth and a compatriot of falsehoods will obviously deny. In his article he appears like a man trying to get an escape route from that failure by instead pointing at those who succeeded against his team as failures. Even with their failing political mathemaics, Miguna still insists that his master is poised for political victory come 2012.It reminds me of those pupils in the village primary schools who took advantage of their illiterate parents to lie about their academic performance at school. When such pupils performed poorly and tailed in class they lied to their parents that they beat everyone in class. A chicken was then slaughtered to celebrate the academic ‘achievements’ of someone who had managed to be number forty out of forty pupils in class. The pupil took advantage of the illiteracy of his parents to get a gift that he least deserved. Those are the tactics Miguna has always used in his attack articles; expecting that Kenyans will not realise his cheap tricks. While trying to help the Prime Minister by advising him on ‘coalition matters’, Miguna’s sycophancy , rather than win, can only scare away Raila’s potential voters when people contemplate a government where someone of his temperament will be the one calling the shots. He is a bully good enough to win the Prime Minister more enemies than friends. In this time and age Kenyans have no love lost between them and political sycophants and opportunists of the Miguna type. Fwamba NC Fwamba +254721779445 National Convenor Kenya Young Voters Alliance