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The Week That Nyachae Shot Himself in the Foot
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 08 July 2007 00:28
It was no longer just an issue of an allegedly crooked tender for KTDA tea sacks in which the Minister's wife, Grace, was implicated. The fact that the person making the allegation happened to be Mumias MP Wycliffe Osundwa, a Luhya, and that the person who first raised the question in Parliament, Webuye MP Musikari Kombo, was another Luhya, was all Mr. Nyachae needed to reach the conclusion that Luhyas were after him.
For the sake of argument, let us grant that Mr. Osundwa may indeed have been acting at the behest of sinister Luhya forces intent on stopping Mr. Nyachae's ascendancy. (The linking of parliamentary reporter David Okwembah into the "conspiracy" did seem to stretch matters too far, considering that the other daily papers too carried the story.
The added allusion that the way the story was highlighted would jeopardise ongoing negotiations with donors was plainly presumptuous. Since when did such shenanigans become a topic for the mandarins of the IMF and the World Bank?)
Still, to grant that Mr. Osundwa was driven by a political motive does not make his allegations a non-issue as Mr. Nyachae sought to portray them.
And Mr. Nyachae did not do much to his own credit by veering irrelevantly to this imagined Luhya plot rather than enlightening his listeners whether the claims had merit or not. The point at issue was not whether Luhya politicians had conspired to besmirch the Finance Minister and to have KTDA Managing Director Eustace Karanja replaced by the Luhya company secretary Julius Shigoli.
The issue was whether Mrs Grace Nyachae had been irregularly awarded a contract to supply tea sacks to the KTDA at inflated prices. The saving grace in this whole saga is that on Thursday, Parliamentary Speaker Francis ole Kaparo cleared Mrs Nyachae of any wrong-doing, saying the papers tabled by Mr. Osundwa were not authentic, lacking as they did any letter-head, or address or the name of the author.
After what amounted to exoneration, Mr. Nyachae had the good grace to apologise to the Luhya community for the slur he had perpetrated against them, arguing that he had done so in a moment of emotion. The details of the tender as alleged in Parliament were that it had been awarded to East African Packaging Industries in respect of three million tea sacks at Sh200-Sh220 apiece.
(Note that there are locally-manufactured sacks available that go for between Sh70 and Sh80 each). Further, according to the allegations, Mrs Nyachae, Mr. Karanja and a third party had arranged to be paid a commission of Sh15 per sack, which in the end would bring in a cool Sh45 million.
These were the details Mr. Nyachae was meant to address. His task was either to confirm or refute them. And when refuting them, he was required to go by the facts. Instead, the Minister chose to introduce irrelevant matters.
Mr. Nyachae has been at this game for too long. Everywhere he looks, he sees dark shadows lurking, waiting to ambush him. And for a politician, he has an amazingly thin skin. The slightest criticism, real or imagined, is enough to see him shooting blindly from the hip.
It is now a well-known trademark of his to book advertising space in newspapers to issue emotional "personal statements" whenever opponents place him on the dock. Nobody really would be bothered with Mr. Nyachae's idiosyncracies were it not for the fact that he is somebody who aspires - or is believed to aspire - to the highest office.
Therein lies the worry: so sensitive a figure being talked about as a presidential contender. Of course, Mr. Nyachae frequently issues pro forma statements denying aspirations for higher office.
These, however, are at variance with what his supporters and enemies alike believe, and also what his close political allies expect. In fact, his own utterances and conduct often puts the lie to his denials.
Recall one curious Press conference he called in June 1994 when he spoke of God having set down some "destiny" for him? What exactly this destiny was he did not say, but the implication was all there for people to pick up. Prior to the last General Elections, there was enormous grassroots pressure on Mr. Nyachae from among the Kisii to divorce himself from the ruling party, which many of his supporters felt had betrayed him by making sure his progress up the ladder was checked.
Wisely, he resisted the pressure; outside Kisiiland, his clout in a new party would have been minimal. What is baffling about him is that he seems to blissfully oblivious to the fact that once you have been identified - rightly or wrongly-- as a contender for top office, you must expect to be targetted by merciless political rivals gunning for the same, or others seeking to derail you.
He is mistaken to imagine that this law of politics will not work in his case. One could probably excuse Mr. Nyachae for such oversights owing to his relative inexperience as a politician having formally entered the fray only in the late Eighties before getting elected to Parliament for the first time in 1992.
But one should also expect that the Minister has been around long enough to have learnt the ropes. Mr. Nyachae also picks the wrong people to fight. His most deadly foes are not the Luhyas he was recently enraged with. His real enemies, as he himself has had occasion to say from time to time, are certain bigwigs in Kanu.
These are the people he has reason to fear, not the swipes of some little-known Luhya MP whose clout hardly extends beyond his own constituency. The Minister has even more reason to be worried because the campaign by these Kanu doyens, much as he and his supporters might pretend otherwise, often seems to have the tacit approval of forces much higher up.
That Mr. Nyachae is accorded a great deal of deference within the system is undeniable. Mr. John Harun Mwau found himself and his Anti- Corruption Authority in hot water after he clashed with the Minister.
So did Nairobi PC Joseph Kaguthi when he was Nyanza PC. Yet this deference goes only so far and one cannot escape the feeling that somebody somewhere is forever keeping a close eye on him lest he does something unexpected.
The other thing Mr. Nyachae must be careful about is the ethnic arithmetic that plays within Kanu and which could prove decisive in the succession race. It is a cruel that ability and drive may not prove the clincher, but the number of votes your ethnic community will command.
If Mr. Nyachae's fears about the Luhya spring from here, then he has a point. Of the communities Kanu claims to represent, the Luhya are the most populous. This is bound to give them a stronger hand as alliances take shape in relation to the Kanu succession. In fact, already, there is persistent talk in Luhya circles of ensuring one of their own threw his hat into the ring.
The name most frequently mentioned is that of Agriculture Minister Musalia Mudavadi who is the Leader of Government Business in Parliament, a job that in the minds of many is being dished out as a trial balloon for the still vacant post of Vice-President. Mr. Nyachae is certainly aware of these ethnic under-currents and shifts, and must have had all that in mind when he claimed at a baraza recently that there was a move afoot to sideline the Abagusii (read himself) from the Succession game.
If as it is clear Mr. Nyachae is intent on securing his seat at the Succession table, he will have to display a lot more finesse than he has done lately. Mr. Nyachae is an able and hard-working politician with a distinguished record of public service.
What is more, he does not shy away from bluntly stating unpleasant truths like with the bombshell he dropped some months ago in Mombasa when he declared the country was stone broke and that there was no point pretending otherwise. In a Cabinet littered with court- jesters, it is re-assuring to have somebody like that who represents reality.
Yet the way he has gone about explaining himself over the saga of the KTDA tea sacks has lowered his public esteem a notch or two.
