KINGWA KAMENCHU AND BEN MULWA, DEMYSTIFYING PRESIDENCY

……..Because fortune is a woman and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and ill-use her, and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is therefore, always woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity to command her.
 Nicolo Machiavelli.

That is Machiavelli’s position on fortune and young men of his generation in his treatise the prince. Such maxim could only hold in ancient Rome; not after Beijing conference was concluded and emancipated women stopped agonizing and started organizing a Jacobean despair of some sort whereas flaming feminists are crusading for Elizabethan Victory. Neither can that maxim hold in Kenya operating under Njoki Ndungu’s Sexual Offences Act.  With the promulgation of the new constitution which by way of fundamental human rights and freedoms  has emasculated men who cherished wife battering as a cognizant cultural practice, most women live under the novel adage that what a man can do a woman can do even better, that includes drinking.

I have been in students’ activism which entails reckless vandalism and food looting for ‘national good’, and youth leadership since my days in the university advocating for either generational revolution or youth friendly politics in Kenya. On matters youth, the age bracket definition has been controversial in Kenya and was settled by the new constitution as between 18 and 35 years. Did you know that ZANU-PF youth leader, Absolom Sikhosana, is 65 and not 60 years old? No wonder comrade Mugabe is as fit as a fiddle at 88. Nay, he is 48 because the late kenyan VP Wamalwa Kijana said life begins at 40. In Africa the UN doesn’t have to tell us who is young and who is old. They can keep their definition  far from Bulawayo and Harare, even further from ZANU-PF and Cde Mugabe.

 I know a lot of young people who gave far too much for that cause but Kingwa Kamenchu and Ben Mulwa are the least and last  people ever imagined to declare presidential aspirations. Are they the Messiah of generational change we have worked hard for? A friend of mine wondered whether Kingwa was searching for high powered marriage proposal.

Without bias I must reckon that Kepta Ombati is a champion of youth socio-economic and political empowerment. He is one guy who knows how hard the national bludgeon clobbers. He risked both life and limb during Saba Saba and Mageuzi to give youth a political voice during the Moi oppressive regime. The same national bludgeon has a lasting efficacy on Matiba’s mental health. But Kepta and other young people, Omtata excluded, survived it. Mr.Ombati is a talented man who struck a balance between civil society activism and mainstream political participation. Little wonder that Youth Agenda is still solid and effective after he surrendered the reigns of its leadership. There is Bonny Juma, Philip Abuor, and Walter Mwania with whom we founded Kenya Youth Movement whose activity was felt across the country. There is a certain brilliant Antony Kibagendi (now parliamentary aspirant for Mosocho constituency) whose struggles brought Vijana Progressive Alliance (VIPA) to the limelight. These are young people who (boasted no pedigree and wealth) initiated either youth lobbies or youth political parties.

On another note, there are a host of young people who joined various youth wings of reform oriented established political parties. Talking of youth wing in this perspective we ought to forget the well lubricated YK92 KANU machinery that plundered and acquired filthy lucre in the name of re-electing Moi. I know of one Kanyadudi, the author of From the Wings to the Mainstream, of Liberal Democratic Party. There are young men and woman like Mbara Ka Mbara, Ken Obura, Silas Jakakiimba, Susan Mangeni, Joshua Odhiambo Nyamori, among others in Orange Democratic Movement who are now building the nation in different capacities. These are people I worked with closely and whose mettle has been put to rigorous tests where political mobilization is concerned.

Every market has a mad man. How one joins politics in Kenya has nothing to do with his political ideology. I do recall former thespians of Redikullas/Red Corner, or latter day version of Comique Franciase of Napoleonic epoch.  I have a lot of respect for Kajairo, John Kiare, Nyambane, and Maurice Ochieng aka Mdomo Baggy who swapped trade and joined politics at some level. None in that team made it to parliament. Was it comedy stretched too far? Some of them are my friends to date, this article notwithstanding!

As fate would have it, there is no Jesus without Judas. Neither is the story of Julius Gaius Caesar complete without Marcus Junius Brutus. There is a clique of young people who by their political affiliation have earned the epithet, agents of status quo –in the eyes of other young people. In youth elite circles discourses, people like Gor Sema Lango, Thomas Ndede, Fred Ngatia, and the entire team of now defunct Vijana na Kibaki are beneficiaries of failures of status quo who have done practically everything within their powers to preserve it. I may not have the proper disposition to discuss Mungiki given their mutant gene like nature; beheading and bloodletting may be permissible at times. Whether in the recent past they fought for or against status quo is a subject of debate and their former leader Maina Njenga is the only soul on earth who know the absolute truth.

By default, if any young person contributed (or purports to have contributed) significantly to the development of fellow young people, chances are that I may have met him or her. Illustrious young women like Stella Agara, Caren Wakoli, and Susan Kariuki come to mind. I have no choice but to ask. Where are Kingwa Kamenchu and Ben Mulwa? What have they done? What experience do they have? The only two Kenyans below 30 years of age to have declared their interest in the presidency of the Republic of Kenya with little or no support of fellow youth, I might add. Before young people pass judgment, as to why the duo has been significantly missing in the forefront of youth leadership, it is imperative to look into their past and what they stand for. 

It is embarrassing that Ben Mulwa, who up to now is not considered a member of UDF (unless he registered online) and was not involved in the initial incessant professional meetings that informed the formation of United Democratic Forum, wakes up one morning and declares candidacy in that party. Not just any candidacy but big stuff like presidency.  When he was being interviewed by Mutegi Njau on Citizen TV Power Breakfast Show some UDF official sent a text asking Ben’s membership number. Is Ben a rookie or just one novice oblivious of political party machinery operations and the now famous Political Parties Act 2011? It could also be infamous depending on your political allegiance - more so if you are in the fold of over 100 party hoppers.

Obviously, I want to believe that Ben is one informed young Kenyan who knows that once you show interest in an elective office in Kenya unsolicited scrutiny in your past and privacy follows automatically. He could have distributed a handful of solar lamps in the desert but anyone may consign a truckload of foodstuff to Turkana in the name of Kenya 4 Kenya and fail to declare interest in either appointive or elective post. From Kaliini Primary School he joined Kyemundu Day School and proceeded to Maseno University (through Joint Admissions Board) before dropping out of Applied Mathematics and Statistics class in his third year. Isn’t this Ben some scholar? How I wished he dropped because he could not afford tuition fee.

 I am commiserating my president in waiting, who by the way is two candidates in one, academically speaking. He labours to appeal to logics that he is both a candidate for Bachelor of Science, Economics and Finance at London School of Economics, University of London and
Masters in Leading Innovation & Change – Robert Kennedy College, Switzerland (University of Cumbria York St. John University). What a genius we have for a president wannabe! He does not even have a diploma in anything. Give the devil his dues; to some extent he is as articulate as anybody capable of soliciting funds for solar lamp could be.

After meticulous consideration this scholar discerns that UDF platitudes represent the change he yearns for. How does Ben want to square it out with DPM Mudavadi in a party whose officials question his membership? Anyway, both Mudavadi and Ben Mulwa are new in the party.

Madam kingwa Kamenchu is a beautiful young woman of Meru extract. In a tipsy moment I may mistake her for Miss Kenya 2013. She almost became a sensation for sobbing during a press conference to declare her candidature. Reflecting upon it, some young people in the media posit that it was her handlers’ idea that Kenyan politicians are so thick skinned and brazen faced that outright display of womanly tears may melt hearts of stone-hearted voters. Crying is one art Madam Kamenchu shares with President Ole Kiyiapi and former president of Zambia, Keneth Kaunda, the emotional author of Zambia shall be free and A letter to my children. Even in parliament crying is an acceptable practice perfected by Hon.Bifoli Wakoli of the ‘Awori is a tictator fame’, ululating like a busaa addict.

Unlike President Ben Mulwa it can never be said that ‘Sobbing’ Kingwa dropped out of any school or class for whatever reasons. There is no gainsaying that Kingwa is thoroughly erudite –in her line of study. From Kaaga Girls High School to University of Nairobi and finally Oxford University she sailed. My crying president who graduated in History and Literature must have read enough about Margaret Thatcher’s unyielding temperament to cure her sobbing habit. The only failures she tolerated were two unsuccessful attempts at SONU leadership in 2003 and 2004 for vice chair person and treasurer respectively. That does not mean an emotional single woman like kingwa may not bag the presidency. When Royal lost to Nicholas Sakorzy (who lost to Francois Holland last month) she cited lack of a man in her life as one of the factors that contributed to her loss –Miss Kamenchu should consider this very seriously. 

Remarkably, madam president is not a failure, not by a long shot, judging from the accolades she has won and patchy stints in leadership, remotely continental. In 2009 she was a warded the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, won First Prize, Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in youth fiction category in 2007,and National Book Development Award for her novel To Grasp at a Star in 2003. She is no mean writer. That interlude at the University of Nairobi did not go in vain because she wrote novels and recited poems to the extent of winning awards.

Notably, she has some leadership stints. Kingwa was the president Oxford University Africa Society in 2010, a member of National Youth Parliament for Tigania West constituency, and a short jab at Ford Kenya Youth League (a contestable claim because no one can recall her presence at the youth league then). What I find consistent is that none of these positions is elective.

According to academic qualification and scholarly skills Kingwa towers over Ben. In respect to objective articulation of how they want to approach leadership Ben trounces Kingwa. At least one dwarf is taller than the other in alternate dimension. A 27 year old fresh graduate from Oxford calls a dramatic press conference to declare her candidature and ends up sobbing profusely. Since then she has been conspicuously missing from the scene and no one has the slightest idea concerning whether she wants to run as an independent candidate or has her own registered party. Going through her sites you see more of a diva than a serious idealistic leader. She displays nothing of a presidential gait and decorum, at all.

The only similarities here are that they both want to be president, they are flaunting academic qualifications from oversea universities (one questionable), they are below 30 years of age, and they are political novices. The last and most crucial similarity is these young people are very ambitious. Does fortune still favour the adventurous impulsive young people or it just favours the bold? Machiavelli could be wrong in the case of two young Kenyans who are adventurous in their ambitions.

To sum it up, my take, whether as a result of an incorrect view of things, logical mistake or an error in judgment, is that both Ben Mulwa and Kingwa Kamenchu have demystified presidency in Kenya. They may not be the generation change we have advocated for but they have a constitutional right to seek political leadership.

Shem Sam

I may be right or wrong but we both have opinions. I do encourage your comments even if they are scathing.