On Kethi, former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has terribly failed Mutula Kilonzo

Updated Saturday, July 13th 2013 at 21:11 GMT +3

By Moses Kuria

For those who knew the late Mutula Kilonzo well, they will testify that he was a principled man. He stood firmly for what he believed in, no matter how unpopular or controversial it seemed to other people. And he deeply loved and cared for his children. In many African traditions, when a man dies, it is taken as automatic that his brothers or his close friends would assume the role of the father to the children he has left behind. Mutula Kilonzo was the Secretary General of Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Party. He was also presumed to be a close friend of the former Vice-President and many are the times Mutula took the bullet for Kalonzo. That Mutula used his immense wealth to severally fund Kalonzo’s political activities is perhaps one of Nairobi’s worst kept secrets. In a nutshell, if Mutula Kilonzo was to rise from the grave today, he would walk straight to Kalonzo Musyoka and demand to know how he has taken care of his children, as a brother and a friend.

If there is one thing the Kethi Kilonzo debacle has demonstrated, it is that whereas Mutula was always there for Kalonzo, Kalonzo has terribly failed him posthumously and in his hour of great need. Let’s take his strange and wild ratings that a particular political party removed Kethi’s name from the register of voters. Assume that there is a possibility, like a cold day in hell, that this claim is true. The born again Christian in Kalonzo knew Kethi had admitted in the IEBC tribunal that she did not have her original identity card while “registering”; she had a photocopy. That is illegal. She also admitted that she used an expired passport to “register”. That is illegal. What Kalonzo who is also a lawyer was telling the world is that a political party has the magical and mystical powers to steal Kethi’s original ID, miraculously make her passport expire and using some very powerful African voodoo, inject her with a dose of selective amnesia that would make her forget where exactly she registered as a voter.

The truth of the matter is that not only did Kalonzo Musyoka know that what he was claiming was not factual, but in a way a burning guilt conscience was making him make the claims. Kalonzo has held the hand of his best friend’s daughter and led her to the garden path of sin and deceit. This is not the best favour you extend to a man who has sacrificed so much for you after his death. Kalonzo asked for God’s forgiveness after losing his cool when making those claims. He should have actually sought for God’s forgiveness for failing Mutula Kilonzo as a guardian for his children who would have been expected to propagate the good values that the late senator had instilled in his children. He failed as a father, a Christian, a lawyer and a leader, enough reasons to seek multiple forgiveness.

Understandably, the Makueni by-election is coming at a time when the CORD family is in desperate need for good news. There is a mistaken belief within CORD that winning this by-election is what is going to define its role as the opposition.

This need not be the case. If one wants to play an effective opposition, there cannot be shortage of issues and causes. Take for example the profligate spending spree that governors like Kisumu’s Jack Ranguma have embarked on with reckless abandon.

These are issues that an effective opposition led by CORD need to help this country to fix. Winning the Makueni by-election will not make these vices despair. Asserting the role of the official opposition to keep the Jubilee government on its toes is what will give relevance to Kalonzo Musyoka and the CORD family. Encouraging a promising young Kenyan woman, mother, professional and lawyer to break the law is not part of that recipe. As for Diana Kethi Kilonzo, irrespective of how this melodrama ends, a moment of serious introspection will be necessary. You are only 36 years old. Your shadow is still towards your West, the sun to your East. A lot of young people believed in you.

They are disappointed with what they saw on Live Television last week. For Kisumu’s Felix Ochieng, he of the ‘Donge’ fame, your word was law, totally beyond reproach.

If he knew that by the time you were playing that starring role at the Supreme Court you had not voted in that election, that your passport was expired by the time you faced off with the best legal minds in this country, I am sure he would have thought otherwise. You still have a chance to redeem yourself. For every sinner has a future and every angel a past, Donge?