Sudi and the folly of scoring an own goal

Some things would be ideal only in a novel. Like the tale of a former matatu tout known for foul language and an aged matriarch who is the widow of the founding President and the mother of the current one.

Of course, the two improbable protagonists inhabit worlds that are vastly, vastly different, but they found their paths crossing in the most unexpected happenstance.

Uttering filth on Mama Ngina Kenyatta was Oscar Sudi’s way of hitting back at Uhuru Kenyatta, who he is angry with for treating William Ruto with contempt. However, that is neither here nor there.

The real irony is that Sudi had almost certainly no idea that he was going to open a much bigger can of worms.  Did he anticipate the furious reaction from the mainstream Kikuyu community? Mmm...maybe.

Would he have comprehended the risk that anger posed for his camp’s prospects come 2022? I doubt. Perhaps it only hit him when he watched the reaction to his insults.

Mau Forest

It is not in the nature of Sudi to reflect deeply on such things beforehand.

Sudi’s fellow traveller, Johanna Ng’eno, is actually a Kanu member, though the party has speedily sanitised itself off him.

Initially a Ruto critic, he is today firmly in the pro-DP team, with his main focus being the Mau forest issue, where his Kipsigis constituents in Narok, who had illegally occupied the place, were evicted by the government.

There is no question that the Central Kenya vote, whichever way it goes, will be the game changer in 2022.

Ruto, and those others in his circle who are more sophisticated than Sudi, must have immediately sensed the implications of the Kapseret MP’s outburst. It was what football enthusiasts call an own goal.

But rather than disown Sudi’s remarks swiftly and unequivocally, Ruto’s supporters clung to the position that the MP had essentially said nothing wrong. In their mind, the fallout was just a hiccup.

Jubilee secretary-general Raphael Tuju, in a TV interview where he spoke with unusual candour about the party’s soured relationship with Ruto, dismissed as “inadequate” an earlier tweet from the DP that criticised loose talkers in a limp, generalised way.

Comparisons offered by the DP’s allies with Embakasi East MP Babu Owino’s own vulgar attack in 2017 on the former First Lady largely miss the point.

Babu’s affront came pre-Handshake, when the gulf between Jubilee and ODM was bitter and wide.

There was nothing to lose for Babu and his party since they were seeking no favours from the Jubilee powerbase.

For the DP’s caucus to imagine they have the same leeway to antagonise Uhuru’s supporters with impunity is breathtaking.

A certain level of prudence, too, should inform the way they react to the vitriol frequently poured on the DP by David Murathe, the off-and-on Jubilee vice-chairman.

Tread carefully

Murathe can rant and rave all he wants, yet the problem he presents is very different from Sudi’s.

At the end of the day everybody knows that Uhuru will not be on the ballot in 2022 (though Francis Atwoli would disagree). But Ruto certainly will be contesting, and he’ll need votes.

The circumstances require his people to tread far more delicately than throwing tit-for-tats with what the likes of Murathe spew. Like the Babu of the past, Murathe has nothing to lose.

And as far as I know, the Jubilee official has never spoken ill of Ruto’s wife, Rachel, or of the DP’s mother. Suppose he did?

Once in a while, the late President Daniel arap Moi would come up with a political gem.

Remember the one where he likened the search for votes to wooing a lady?

The Sudi types would be every gentle girl’s nightmare. They come with crude threats, full of an arrogant sense of entitlement.

For the record, Sudi and Ng’eno asserted they owed nobody an apology.

“What for?” says the side supporting them.

The insolence has been noted from the other end. And the message has been sinking in, bit by bit, one incident after another, incrimentally.

It will reach a point where it will be impossible to set the clock back.

Folk heroes

Those in the anti-Ruto corner are actually happy with the Sudi episode because it bolstered their case. No doubt, Sudi and Ng’eno have emerged as folk heroes in Kalenjinland.

Again, the ‘Kieleweke’ people will keenly capitalise on that to hammer home what they have always preached: “See, we can’t possibly work with these people (meaning the DP’s political squad). If they can talk like this when they are not in power, what will they do if they actually hold it?” Aha.

Tuju was quite scathing when he referred to those in Ruto’s formation such as Sudi as “intellectual dwarfs”.

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has had cutting words about them as well.

And on a road drive along Thika highway, Uhuru dismissed them as “fools”.

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