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Dear Musalia Mudavadi,
Salutations.
I write this letter in distress. I also write knowing as Nikolai Gogol would say, every man has his little failings. First a small story. President William Ruto and former Kisii Senator Sam Ongeri have a couple of things in common.
You served with them in the Kanu government. You sat with them in the Serena talks that pulled this country that you love from the brink of the abyss. It was a first-hand account of how primitive political competition and dishonesty can ruin a county.
You worked with the two in the Grand Coalition Government.
Then one Saturday afternoon, they were suspended as Cabinet ministers and reinstated the same evening. The move by then Prime Minister Raila Odinga to suspend the two before they were rescued by President Mwai Kibaki, marked the official divorce between the former Premier and your boss.
Sir, one might not want to venture into the merits of Raila’s claims for the suspension but there was this argument about instilling discipline and hygiene in government by the Nyapala. I am writing this fully aware of your job description and its bounds. I have reminded myself the words of the President that you are the third most senior after him and the DP.
Sir, you have an enviable job.
Your role is to assist the presidency in the coordination of government projects and supervise government business in all ministries.
You chair and coordinate the National government legislative agenda across all ministries and State departments in consultation with and for transmission to the party/coalition Leaders in Parliament.
Your office is mandated to facilitate inter-ministerial coordination of cross-functional initiatives and programmes. I am terribly unqualified to advise you about your job. But the way we understand it, you are the chief shepherd whose task is to make the President’s horses run on time.
And that would not be the purpose of this missive. Sir, you have a certain unwritten responsibility to Kenyans. It is called eldership.
If you look around the faces in Ruto Cabinet, you are the most experienced of them all. You joined Parliament in 1989 and served in plum portfolios. It would offend your legendary modesty for one to remind your friends and foe that your longevity in politics and knowledge of statecraft towers those in the presidency. Kenyans are fully aware that though like other Cabinet ministers, you are appointed by the President. It cannot be disguised that your position is “negotiated.”
This untangles you from populism and the false loyalties that are beholden to the other appointees. You are the numero uno in the Kenya Kwanza Cabinet with fairy unfettered authority. Reading your autobiography, one discerns an individual who has been disciplined around power and big money despite being appointed to senior positions in government.
And that is the purpose of this letter. Sir, Cascade your discipline down to other cadres of government. Kenyans are outraged by unsavoury comments by Cabinet ministers such as Moses Kuria and the prodigality of the Kenya Kwanza administration.
Sir, young politicians in Kenya Kwanza are putting their fingers in the noises of individuals who have made sacrifices they cannot begin to imagine for the country because they belong to the other side.
Where is Musalia..Question mark. That is what Kenyans are asking.
It is time for the son of Hannah to come out and re-assert himself in government, help the President enforce discipline and deploy his vast experience to guide the greenhorns in Cabinet. It is difficult to tell whether some of the pronouncements by Cabinet Secretaries reflect the policy of the Ruto administration. As you pointed out on Wednesday, there is a thin line between a public official and someone in their private capacity.
Forgive me, for So Long a Letter.