Cord leader Raila Odinga at Laico Regency. Organisation was a big mess
By MN Reporter
The National Super Alliance (NASA) planning committee have chosen Ruaraka MP Tom Kajwang’ as their replacement of Chief Justice David Maraga during the swearing in ceremony.
Kajwang’, who is an advocate wore official court attire when he arrived at Uhuru Park in Nairobi for the ceremony amid wild cheers.
He is expected to swear NASA leader Raila Odinga and his deputy Kalonzo Musyoka as president and deputy respectively,
Kajwang laughed off threats that they would be charged with treason saying already a team of lawyers is out to defend the move.
The vocal opposition legislator told press that he was excited and honored to be given the task of administering the oath.
FATE OR DESTINY
Seemed to have sealed NASA’s stab at the presidency. Why?
After his ‘fateful’ defeat at the battle of waterloo in June 1815, King Bonapatre had lamented thus; ‘I found that I was wearing beyond the time of life at which point fortune ussually proves favourable or at least, in my eyes’ Had he perhaps seen this sign beckoning immediately before the battle of waterloo? Upto 20,000 servicemen would have, perhaps been saved, Bonapatre had sadly observed after the tragic event. He had failed to realise that ‘the spell that had hung around his illustrous careeer for years had started to systematically break’ and for good it did.
Most career politicians at some point in their time see signs or premonitions of failure but decide to recluse in denial. They travel the road of denied self-ashtonisment (inability to change anything), they will, late in time accept the facts and then begin to reveal. At this revealation stage, Bonapatre had observed ‘ I (had long) relinguished the anticipation of ultimate success (at waterloo) but clearly didnot accept.
Rather than lynch Kalonzo for his conduct on 30th January 2018, we should see in him a very shrewed, tactical, calculating and broad thinking politician who tactifully refused to go to the battle at ‘Waterloo’ for obvious reasons. Why go to a bad battlefield with a ‘bindili’ when you know your enemy has superior fire power and a law to his protection? Would you have advised HAITI to declare war on America because D Trump verbally hurt them? Kalonzo must be a very experienced and wise man to choose his battles carefully. So what should he and the other key NASA commanders do? They should blame and read the ‘riots act’ to their General for asking HAITI to go to war with the greatest millitary complex on earth.
Having said above, we should try and understand this general. Question number one. What can even great generals do against a rigid destiny..what?
In Chinua Achebe’s writing in the book Things Fall Apart’ the greatest protagonist in the story, the great man of Umuofia called Okonkwo, the man who in one complete sweep, destroyed Amalinse the cat at a local wrestling match, worked his way to high esteem. Amalinse had reigned for seven continous years without defeat until Okonkwo crushed to the scene. The single action by Okonkwo catapulted him to instant and sustained fame. But unknown to everyone, Okonkwo’s actions were being driven by a an internal force, a mad fury to influence the destiny of his self and tribe. He hated everything related to his father who everyone saw as lazy, a village story teller, a perenial drunk who owed everyone money. Taking this hate to extreme levels, he shaped his own character, a man so determined to suceed that he spared no one and nothing in his wake. Had no patience for unsuccesful men and could not stand weakness. He worked hard and earned tittles to his name because he feared to die and be burried like his father who died without honour and was burried in the ‘evil forest.
Change can be so devastating. Okonkwo, like Bonapatre refused to acknowlegde his weakness and denied his own fatal flaws. He could not stop the might and reality of modernisation that was sweeping through Iboland.
With strong and continous feeling of fatal hopelessness, Okonkwo gave up and ended up in the same ‘evil forest much like his father, withour the much sought after honor’
So, what became of a man who for most of his life worked so hard to earn respect and honor only to tragically lose at the weary and wee hours of life…there is a parallel here with the general. Outwardly, Okonkwo was stoic, respected and stern but inwardly, he was hurting in many ways. He was fighting the greatest battle of his life, the battle of ultimate honor……the battle of Waterloo. Had baba had any premonitions to his political battle of 2018? Did he feel the night before 30th that he was losing the battle of Waterloo? How is it that Kalonzo, Weta and Mudavadi withdrew from going to waterloo at the wee hours…well i am sure they had seen a lost battle and didnt want to loose poorly equiped troops whose general had already given up but dare not say so for fear of losing honor like Okonkwo. So see no evil hear no evil, boom proceed irrespective of consequences. What a suicidal mission but one that will give the protagonist the eventful oportunity to tragically bow out of a tattered and narrowing political stage, bolting out with hollow confidence, the bolt of a lifetime, albeit with a little tittle ‘president’ (of people?) before ‘Jaramogi’s name and ‘wis’ into the unknown. At least the small known is that the miserable swear document on an A4 raiply paper will find a place in the general’s bedroom and hearts of adherents, our gues. Authorities should allow him the pitiful pleasure of the small conquest. As the general bolts out, a lesser protagonist aka Water melon, he of a rare melon species of the greater Athi plains, is bussy out of stage lighting up the mood of the main protagist’s audience with his ‘song of the goat’ (creek/shakespearean), hoping to fight a good battle another day. At least he is spared the horrors and theatrics of the chief protagonist but his eyes and ears are wide open to take to his heels at the slightest sign of danger to his dear life to the Athis Plains.’ehee asi’ ehee fundamentos.’
Back to tragically fatal characters and Shakespear was a master of Catharsis in theatrical plays..in catharsis, the audience release build up emotions created by the shakespearean tragic heroes in the play. The fatal heroes lend themselves consistently to increasingly fatal moral weaknesses that tragically end the heroes on.stage i.e Romeo in Juliet and Romeo et all.
Akin to shakespearean endings, the politics characterised by NASA appears to have come to an aprupt cul-de-sac at the waterloo of 30th Jan 2018 after the ‘song of the goat’ in the shakespearean version and one that took barely a minute or so. In typical shakespear the audience would emphathise with the tragic hero and allow him to flee mostly because the protagonist would make a string of errors of judgement and appear to emotionally suffer. And rather than let him suffer in hopelessness, they would, out of pity ‘ escort’ him out of stage, at least emotionally.
Pity and fear would then reign.
Pity anf fear will visit the house of NASA. Pity because they so loved their general that his tragic end has finally come and fear because of the proverbial looming road to no where. At least for now, they are at the cul-de-sac having a long and windy convesation about what happened.
And what a tragic waste….the good is destroyed with the bad..
And it appears that is the bad side of wrongly trained politics.