Wetang’ula: Why I fell out with Odinga and chances of joining Ruto

Bungoma Senator Moses Masika Wetang’ula is in the eye of the One Kenya Alliance storm as the outfit faces an internal revolt and poaching of its members by the deputy president’s UDA and ODM leader Raila Odinga.

In the first of a two-part series, he speaks to the Saturday Nation on OKA, falling out with Mr Odinga and being wooed by Mr Ruto.

What seat are you going for in the August elections?

That is said, I know and believe so. I am not jostling for endorsement by my party because last year, on November 4 during the delegates conference, Ford-Kenya party gave me the mandate to run for the presidency which I am doing and two, look for like-minded partners and go for the formation of the next government.

At the first level, I am preparing myself and getting ready, second, and which is more visible, Ford-Kenya is part of OKA, and we are engaged in discussions on how and when to unveil our flagbearer and we have agreed that whatever we agree on, we should abide by that. If that task lands on my desk, well and good, if it lands on someone else’s, I will support since we are a team.

What has the technical committee formed to help arrive at the most appropriate candidate recommended?

They have not given any firm recommendations with names. What they have done are regional permutations based on who should be the flagbearer, the running mate, taking into account the weaknesses and strengths of each of the candidates.

If it is somebody from the West who is attractive, the running mate has to come from either the Mountain or the East and vice versa, that is what they tabled before us in Elementaita. Contrary to the speculations in the media, the report did not bear any names and we have not reached that level yet.

Some leaks show that the committee settled on Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka as the OKA candidate. Could that be the case?

I have heard that from the media but not from the technical committee. As an OKA principal, my source of information should be the team we have instructed to do the work. From my representatives in that team, we have a team of very strong economists, researchers and lawyers- who have given me a copy of the report, there is no indication of any name.

They only have indications that if we pick a candidate from this region, then this is likely to happen. Remember our politics has very strong ethnic and regional undertones. Therefore, when you pick a candidate, you have to factor in a lot of considerations. 

It would be foolhardy to go to the next election say with Musalia as the candidate and I am the deputy or I am the candidate and he is the deputy, it will not fly or Kalonzo is the candidate and Mutula Junior is his deputy.

So, the technical committee has to come with tangible evidence showing who fits the bill and so forth. They have created scenarios in empty boxes. If you put this in box A or B, what percentage of the regions and community strength do you bring in? If you put this name to this box, what region or religious group will you bring in? These are the things they are working on.

In the event you are not a flagbearer or running mate, what other plans do you have?

I will cross that bridge when I get there. I do not want to pre-empt anything now. If I say I have a seat that I want to run for now, I automatically create a bias in the minds of the technical committee and they will probably not think of me as a flagbearer, so I would rather leave that lid closed for now.

But the likes of (Senator Cleophas) Malala are giving the indication that perhaps if it cannot be Musalia, then OKA is dead...

Yes and no. Yes to the extent that when such extravagant suggestions are made, they jostle your partners, they make them feel perhaps you are coming to the table to negotiate from a fixed position. And you cannot negotiate any matter from a fixed position. Negotiation is a give and take situation; you move forward and slightly backwards to accommodate each other.

But for somebody to say, I am in ANC, Musalia is my party leader and he is the one I believe is taking the OKA ticket. That is different from saying that if it is not Musalia, and then there is no OKA. It is the style of communication adopted and you know when you are communicating in English, it is not our language and not everyone is endowed with good construction of English statements.

Are there any trust issues among the OKA principals?

If there was a trust issue, we would not have been together. We came together as a coalition of the willing based on mutual trust. In politics, we say your strategic partners are also your strategic competitors in the competition.

People are bound to look over their shoulders constantly to see whether those running behind them are portending any harm or not, that is part of politics. The fact that we have been together for over one year tells you that we trust each other, we believe in each other and our course.

There has been this talk of a two-horse race. The construct that it is either Raila or Ruto, where does this leave OKA?

DP Ruto has been on the jogging track for the last four years, so he is definitely, in regard to the presidential race, more visible than others. Raila entered before OKA, so in terms of visibility, he has been seen ahead of us. That does not mean in any way that OKA is not a force; that OKA is not a horse, that OKA is not in the race.

OKA is in the race, the victory in any race is judged by who beats the tape first, and not who starts the race first. In a marathon, the pacesetters and the rabbits that run ahead of the pack fall by the way as the real runners come to win the race. I believe OKA are the real runners in this race in 2022.

Any chance that you can work with Raila again?

In politics, you never say never but sometimes Jesus said, the body is willing but the spirit is weak.

You blamed him for the manner you were hounded out of the minority seat in the Senate and promised a messy, noisy divorce, have you patched up things?

What Raila and his team did to me in the Senate was so humiliating and definitely, it hurt many people I represent. I have been winning elections in my constituency and county and those are people who believe in me.

As a party, I have MPs from everywhere in the country and all these are with me because they have a sense of affinity and loyalty and above all, associate with me, certainly what happened hurt many of them. 

I have said several times that I do not have the capacity to carry the burden of unforgiveness in my life; that burden is very heavy and destructive to bear. The better thing to do is to pick the phrase of our founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta when he was speaking in reference to the brutality of the colonial masters and said, “As an individual who suffered in their hands, and as a nation that has been humiliated at their hands, we forgive freely but the capacity to forget is minimal”.

An argument has been made that OKA came into being as a result of parting ways with Raila in Nasa, other than the shared sense of betrayal, what does OKA stand for?

It is foolhardy to form a party on the basis of aspersions because when you are carrying the heavy burdens in the political landscapes in Kenya, the burdens will be too heavy. But, truth be told, as Cord, as Nasa, each of the partners of Mr Odinga have serious grievances in the manner in which the coalition was handled, the handshake was engineered, ODM has continued to arrogantly manage and handle the parties fund with the exclusion of others, without genuine explanation and accounting for them.

As we speak, Ford-Kenya and Wiper have never received any single cent from the Cord coalition despite the fact that the funds were paid to ODM and that is not something any party would forget and forgive easily. 

As Nasa, ODM has continued belittling other partners and speaking unprintable words when describing Wiper, ANC and Ford-Kenya, especially by the secretary-general Edwin Sifuna and other members of various ranks.

OKA came together and of course, politics brings people with same interests together, those interests could be positive or negative. To this extent, our positive interest is we want a united Kenya, a united people pursuing common prosperity, peace and unity of the country that has sometimes been elusive and equity for all. 

Equally, for all is the altruism that Musalia, Kalonzo and I have had grievances with our partner in Nasa, whether that contributed to our coming together or not is a discussion for another day and we will leave it to historians to analyse and tell Kenyans why it happened. At times we are creations of history and sometimes, we are creators of history.

The DP is confident that he will bag the elections through his UDA contestants in Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia in the August elections, does that worry you? Or could it be that you have some tacit partnership with him?

I do not know what is in his mind but I know what is in mine. Anybody who goes into a competition must have confidence no matter how misplaced, that he will win.

Otherwise, you shouldn’t go into that competition. I have candidates in Nandi and I am confident they will do well despite not being the most dominant party there. It is the same for those raiding our turf. 

That is why I said that politics is about partnerships, no door is closed until elections are closed or legal timelines are closed. 
Whether the DP who visits my two counties regularly has any intentions to work with us, I do not know. Do we have any intentions to work with him? That is a decision the party will make and not myself as an individual.

What would it take to work with Ruto?

It is a question of interests as I said. It is all about the people that I represent who believe and support me, where will they have their interests served and where do we have the least risk of betrayal? Those are factors we will look at. I do a lot of consultations with people via phone calls, messages, WhatsApp and I will consider them all at my own level.

Tomorrow in the Sunday Nation: Wetang’ula reveals secrets of talks between OKA and Uhuru and plans for Musalia’s big day