Otoyo amesema sio mimi!
BY ODOYO OWIDI
October 20, 2015
This is one of the few occasions when I am going to be brutally honest with my party – ODM. One of those few occasions when I will leave many a supporter frothing at the mouth. But they must understand that a dangerous disease requires a dangerous remedy. For some diseases, doctors may recommend life-threatening therapies or even surgery.
It is also important to understand that ODM is the locomotive of this train called Cord. Anything affecting ODM almost automatically affects Cord. Equally important, I am an ODM life member and by extension, a Cord member. So every opinion I express here should be considered as an effort to make the coalition better.
It is becoming increasingly clear the Cord leadership has no intention of wresting power from Jubilee, or maybe they just have no working strategy. They have been reduced to only looking for their opponents' mistakes and using them to remain politically active and keep their supporters believing their opportunity is better now than at any other time in the past. It is like their only goal is to keep supporters believing they have the best chance ever to win the presidency.
Outside perennial attacks on Jubilee, the only visible strategy they have tried is a campaign in their perceived strongholds to register residents for IDs and as voters. The effort was not commensurate with the expected number of votes they could register over and above the current figures. It was a campaign that those who are not conversant with the population figures of Western and Luo Nyanza may think would raise an additional two million-plus votes. Worse still, considering the volatility of voting in Western, it is possible the campaign could easily equally benefit Jubilee.
Cord seems to love strategies that end up in public rallies, which naturally degenerate into name-calling and slander. It is an expensive way of winning support, though it generates quite some ‘following’, which, unfortunately, cannot be converted into votes without proper organisation and planning. It is like planting and leaving the crop un-harvested.
Recently, Cord jumped onto the Kenya-Uganda sugar saga, tried a few rallies dubbed sugar-belt rallies that supporters were told would deny Jubilee votes in sugar-growing areas. But Cord MPs couldn’t cope with the rallies. They were too costly. More so, Jubilee was returning fire in equal measure.
Then came the teachers’ strike, which saved the hapless Cord MPs from travelling far and wide to rallies at their own cost. The strike left Cord with egg on their face. A paybill number they gave out to raise money for teachers' upkeep during the strike could not raise half a million shillings two weeks after it was issued. This meant each teacher would get less than two shillings for two weeks. This whole thing has died a natural death like the Okoa Kenya initiative.
Then there was Devolution CS Anne Waiguru revealing that after investigation she found out that Sh791 million was carted away by her officers. Little did she know that she was one of ODMs greatest enemies – for exposing the rot in Kibra constituency – second only to anyone challenging Baba’s position in Luoland. An offence for which one will be punished, dead or alive.
The ODM guns were suddenly turned on her and ‘Waiguru must go’ quickly became a hit song. Waiguru is a bigger enemy in Cord than Cord governors buying wheelbarrows for figures enough to buy a car, or building gates for figures my MP used to build three dispensaries. There are governors in Cord strongholds who have erected perimeter fences at the cost of building a six-storey office block. We are yet to hear that Cord wrote to them asking them to tone down on their ‘eating’ habits.
In fact it is on record that the Cord leadership recently went out of its way to save a Nyanza governor from public censure at a rally organised for just that purpose.
Then came along the now-trending ‘who fixed Ruto’, a hit song they could have easily ignored if the Kalenjin votes were not at stake. Call it eating humble pie. Only a few years ago, ODM's first battalion told Ruto to leave ODM quickly for they could comfortably do without him and his followers. How will Cord win the Kalenjin vote when the digital war pitting Kalenjin and Luo bloggers is left raging online unabated? Social media is full of self- appointed Cord warriors ready to tear to pieces anyone who does not agree with their pro-Baba position.
If not amplifying Jubilee's mistakes, mistakes we can all see, what is Cord doing to take over from Jubilee?
Odoyo Owidi is chairman, Luoland Dialogue Initiative.
- See more at:
http://www.the-star.co.k...ng#sthash.ERd9zlPT.dpuf!i.am.back!!!!