Why would the agenda of ODM a party that used to rumble in Kenya be a bias towards Mudavadi?

OPINION By Justus Tumaini

Since the beginning of 2021, it has become ODM’s bad manners to turn their frustration to ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi. This is born from the recent statement made by President Uhuru Kenyatta during Mama Hannah Mudavadi’s burial that,

It is time the country gets a different president outside the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin community. President Uhuru Kenyatta.

This statement shook the country from self-induced sleep. The political class led by the former minister and the deputy president were caught with their pants down. They didn’t expect such a huge and bold statement will come from the lips of the sitting president. From that day, political relationships have been rearranged and re-birthed. The handshake has seemed to fall into the unbridled path, its future seeming uncertain.

Apart from that statement, Musalia Mudavad and his counterpart Moses Wetangula have locked ODM out of western Kenya and actually made it impossible for ODM to sell in it if the Matungu and Kabuchai by-election results are anything to go by. It was a political mistake for ODM to field an unpopular candidate in Matungu and for lack of hindsight, they went on to committing political suicide in one region that seemed Raila Odinga backyard for ages.

With the Matungu by-election question being settled, Musalia Mudavadi has together with his peers formed a coalition that has excluded the former prime minister and looking at it prophetically, this coalition will definitely push ODM from the national map and reduce it to a Luo Nyanza party. It is rumored that Mudavadi will be the flag carrier of this coalition leaving the former prime minister without a single constituency in Luhya Nation. These are some of the reasons that are a big disquiet within the ODM rank and file.

That notwithstanding, the ANC leader is taking the former prime minister head-on and without mincing words, he has exposed the deceitful acts of the former prime minister during coalition making. The former prime minister has relied heavily on convincing his peers to form a coalition with (him) ODM promising them that this is his last attempt at the presidency. He has used tactics of signing an MOU or a pre-coalition agreement he never honors and once he gets on the ballot, he loses the election and changes tune, leaving his coalition partners wondering what to do.

It is on this weakness of the former prime minister that his former friends who control large parts of the country are leaving him all alone and going forward to forge their own political path without the former prime minister. ODM has lost its clout in major regions across the country and the unfortunate reality is that the crop of young leaders who are running ODM are not there to help the former prime minister but to help his boat sink.

Their veiled and sometimes open attack on the character of ANC leader will not save the dwindling strides and stripes of the orange party. ODM has invested heavily in mouth-watering propaganda without a solid foundation for its execution. The smear campaign has become one of its main tools of the trade but as usual, the results of the smear campaign have been the same. The smear campaign has not produced a president for the Orange party nor will it produce one in the near future.

How can a serious party like ODM claim that it placed pranks in the main daily publications with huge circulation to fool people that their party leader is going for the presidential nomination for 2022 against his deputy party leaders? And when the ANC party leader commented on it, they turned to say it is a prank. The crop of young leaders within the ODM circles should investigate their motives. The ODM that was rumbling in the republic of Kenya is no more. The one Kenyans are seeing is a comedy of its former self.

The truth is that Musalia Mudavadi is slated to be the fifth president of the Republic of Kenya and such news is not making ODM sit on its laurels. They should accept that Mudavadi’s time has finally come and just like Jesus in the bible, the country knows who is planning the betrayal. Mudavadi is headed for the presidency and at no time will he settle for less. ANC as a party is working to produce the fifth president and it will actually not engage in ODM side shows. The bungling of Senator Cleophas Malala from the senate leadership has not made matters easy for ODM. ODM is shooting itself in the foot all the time and they should not blame Mudavadi.