They say that when a hyena wants to eat her children, she first accuses them of smelling like goats. Basically I take lowly the people who like sayings but I cannot cease thinking of this one whenever Ababu’s issue arises.
Recently I listened to him speak at a media interview. I learnt many things about him. One, the guy has not lost his youth enigma. But the other thing was the undertones of frustration and horror. Ababu was trying hard to reach out to the world yet he seemed to have less belief in whether or not his argument would be plausible to the audience. You could hear in his voice the cords of self disbelief and uncertainty.
In the interview, Ababu tells of when the rain started beating him in the very umbrella of ODM. He says that it began way back before he was ejected from PAC in a campaign that was interestingly marshalled by none other than his ODM friends. He was accused of bribery by corporates (and from Jubilee quarters as seen by the ODM parliamentarians on his neck).
The interesting bit is that his accusations stopped immediately after his ouster. Nobody was now interested to find out the decisions of the investigating committee. The scores had been settled by pushing out a ‘corrupt’ man tarnishing the image of a clean ODM. None of the petition mandarins has ever again gone to another court to question his integrity.
Then the men in black happened. What happened at Kasarani is still fresh even to those with the worst touch with history.
The incident left me questioning the alleged intelligence of Ababu. I mean, after it happened, and the writing was all there on the wall for him to read, why has he taken all this time to understand that he is no longer needed by those close to the idea he purports to support?
Ababu knew, and still knows, the financiers of Men in Black. But he stayed in there. Was that foolishness or it was political patience?
He knows who is on his neck now. Yet he sticks in still. Is that clever?
I say his current tribulations are only self made. The biggest question he is yet to answer is, why did he avoid the anti-IEBC demons? Since ODM has a D for democracy, it should only mean that everybody in the party can take a democratic stand on such small issues as IEBC and Isaak Hassan whom Raila himself sat in the chairman’s seat. That is how democracies are made. That is how politics of a nation mature. But when the Budalangi man took stand while noisemakers were parading themselves at market places to sing their tired charades, the hyena spoke.
You smell like a goat, my child. And I seem hungry.
The intent to chase him has always been there because ODM must get successors from ‘within’ and taking the wellbuilt political outfit outside the ‘within’ might be disastrous, even if that person from without is a perceived in-law. And so anything real and imagined will be painted on him until a single look identifies him the outsider.
They say Namwamba is bought. How much was Miguna bought at? How much did the buyer spend on Ruto? How much was spent on Mudavadi? And where does this buyer stand to keep buying human beings?
ODM is a family idea of business (extended into Cord). Cord is its trial strategy to see if the shepherd needs to change the colour of sheep skins on his dogs. People like Khalwale, Muthama and Junet can dance themselves lame but when time comes make to key decisions, they will be shown where they belong before the family holds an ‘in’ sitting.
That is the sad truth about a party many hoped would deliver Kenyans from bondage.
But youthful Ababu doesn’t want to see this. He still holds on, which will destroy his political career. Who will be interested in a stranger who stayed too long into the family party? Who will follow someone that was thrown away when he still wanted to stick in?
My advice, let him move out. It is long overdue.
The author is a creative content writer at papawere.com